“Cassandra” by Bartholomew Barker

Man and Woman by Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, c. 1754u20131806) is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

With her head on my shoulder 

fingers twiddling my chest hair 

in the honesty of afterglow 

she whispered 

You’ll leave me soon 

you don’t want a wife 

you just want a toy 

to pull off the shelf 

when you’re lonely 

Then feeling some fresh tension 

grip my body she pecked my cheek 

Don’t worry 

I’ve known 

since our first date 

And as though she’d accused me 

of lusting after her BFF 

I proclaimed my devotion 

both loudly and honestly 

because I still felt that love 

surge in my chest 

when she smiled 

But a few months later 

I said good-bye 

employing the cliché 

it’s not you— it’s me 

I’ve known

Bartholomew Barker is an organizer of Living Poetry, a collection of poets in North Carolina. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he makes money as a computer programmer to fund his poetry habit.

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