Latest poetry

Flame

Your labor, my peace.

You dance, I dream.

Leap, flicker, illuminate shadows

on the freshly painted bedroom wall, performing a private ballet

pirouette, plié, jete!

You, the ballet mistress and choreographer,

I, your captive audience.

Encore!

Your performance excites me, flame.

your beauty, my pleasure

your heat warms but holds no candle to my burning heart or

my greedy aching flesh that finds only an empty cold space where he should lie.

Flame

Privacy, please.

My breath, your death.

Good night,

flame.



Debbie Griffin

Breath

breath
baby's breath
not the tiny white flower
the breath of an infant that smells so sweet
not sweet
unique,
human life
breath
as in breathing deeply
passionate breath
they say those are the moments that take your breath away,
those seconds of sighing, panting, breathing the breath of another
human
life
breath
labored breath
the breath of a life lived fully
coming to its rest
emptying oneself of breath
no breath
death.