Take the basic craving to watch your beloved in motion –
emptying his pockets onto the bookshelf,
approaching with telltale gait,
thumbing his beard thoughtfully –
and crumple it in your hands
like a troublesome poem.
Listen to distant wind chimes and barking dogs, watch
curtains fluttering on ever-lovely West Coast mornings
from your Midwest thunderstorm afternoon.
Make like your heart is a rusted bolt,
and pry at it with pliers, with numbed fingers.
Fumble with scissors and kitchen knives
until under the grime, bright silver scrapes
wear the edges away.
Until even the right wrench
could never loose it.
— Melissa Sewell
Melissa Sewell lives in Topeka, Kansas, where she slings coffee and scrubs her daughter’s painty fingerprints from the walls. She loves raspberries and being divorced. Her poems have resided in Susquehanna Review, Inscape, seveneightfive magazine, and the upcoming Kansas City Voices.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 
melissa sewell is my favorite poet!