Under the Purple Sky, I Ask of You, by Courtney Justus

Dido, by Grace Hartigan (USA). 1960.

Under the Purple Sky, I Ask of You

I.
I used to dream
about this kind of purple
of the summer night sky
bursting open after a storm.
Under this night sky,
I am grabbing your dark hair
and warm sparks spiral
from your German tattoos
into my black dress.
A shadow darts across your face
like a spirit crossing a room
to move the metal clock hands
and whisper a spell
across the worn leather couch,
where I imagine
you covering me silently
with your wool cardigan.
It smells of smoke and the grey
of a silent knife being polished
in the indigo-black sky.


II.
The sky most nights
is a dark blue hand reaching
for your red heart.
I listen for its beating
but can only hear the train
as it lugs itself
across the tracks
in the greying night.
I remember my friend's story
about two teenagers walking
along tracks in the dead of night,
stepping on the ties
like they are walking
on a pier across the ocean.
I walk your wooden floors
in the early hours of morning
and listen for their whispers.


III.
Beneath the newly red sky, I find
that sharp slice of silver
gleaming between suffocated sunbeams.
It is the hour
of burnt oak and cedar
and my hands reaching
for the cursive lyrics
newly inked on your rib:
“Faith, you're driving me away.
You do it everyday.”
I kiss the red, tender skin
and whisper a poem
about the day I walked
into the ocean
for the first time.
I dropped a single grey stone
into its quietly turbulent body.


IV.
If you are a river,
then I am the stones
sitting at your bank,
feeling you slowly run
your cold touch across
my smooth, shining surface.
Beside me, drops of blood
glisten like metal in
the morning light.
I ask of you only
that you learn
to carry me softly
in your current,
gentle as the first time
you held me under
a purple sky splashed
with silver stars.
I've carried this wish,
folded it into my body
after years of contemplation.

Courtney Justus

Courtney Justus is a writer living in San Antonio, Texas. Her work has been published in Tipton Poetry Journal, The Trinity Review, Eunoia Review and The Rivard Report, among other publications. She will graduate from Trinity University with a Bachelor of Arts in English this May.

Author's note: The lines, “Faith, you're driving me away. You do it everyday” are from the song “My Iron Lung” by Radiohead.