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Tasting Like Sand
by Ken HarnischKeep in touch, you said
Before you found your hat and coat
And fled out into the jungle
For a month.
Thus be it ever,
That I become your confessor
And best friend when things
Go awry, and your convenient
Left-over if there is a whiff
Of hope in tomorrow’s assignation
I’ve read Deborah Tannen
And might argue she’s got
It wrong about Mars and Venus
Men would not share the
Stories of their conquests
Or being conquered
With such passion and detail
As women bring to
A best friend’s campfire
And it’s nice you confide in me
But I would parse your stories
And suggest you relay the horizontal with
The same lowered flame that you do the vertical
You see, sweetheart:
I don’t really care how
Your legs entwine with his
When it is all going grand
Because when it isn’t
And you’re weeping on my shoulder
I’m still trying to forget
That last week this all tasted like sand.
01/13/2012 Posted on 01/13/2012
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Gabriel Ricard on 01/13/12 at 06:00 PM That opening sets a beautiful, perfect tone, man. Loved this. |
| Posted by Alison McKenzie on 01/13/12 at 09:00 PM Nothing quite as descriptively vivid as something that tastes like sand. It evokes, for me, choking and thirst and grit and everything nearly dead. |
| Posted by Kristine Briese on 01/14/12 at 02:59 AM I have to go along with Alison; "tasting like sand" is highly evocotive... |
| Posted by LK Barrett on 01/14/12 at 01:54 PM ...this relationship is so well framed, so poignant. Great tone, and an aching that speaks volumes...thank you. LK |
| Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 01/14/12 at 08:55 PM I'm with Ali about the sand - what an ending and a sensation it gives. This is dismal, yet revealing. |
| Posted by Lori Blair on 01/14/12 at 09:50 PM I can taste that sand oh my...Brilliant write! and how you have said it all my friend!!! |
| Posted by Elizabeth Jill on 01/15/12 at 02:13 PM I can feel the pain in this poem, really feel it. |
| Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 01/20/12 at 11:48 PM Excellent piece of work, Ken. Oh the humanity! |
| Posted by Tony Whitaker on 01/22/12 at 09:30 AM What a blistering read on being cast off, only to relive the agony through a lost love's further conquest. That's life and this poem expresses it so well. The "sand" sets all kinds of mental imagery and the sense of taste in motion. |
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