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Featured Poem: Kissing the Gym

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By Sally Wahl Constain
Jacksonville Branch, Florida

 

Here I am

many decades later

trying to exorcise … I mean exercise

away

the accumulated pounds of flesh

at the gym … I mean the sports club,

which once was a movie theater

with a balcony

where you kissed me

softly, tenderly

thrilling me,

filling me with hope

for what was not to be.

 

That was long ago,

and yet,

as I sweat,

that kiss emerges from the hidden rafters

as if it had been waiting since then

to take me back

to bring me back

and break my heart

again.

15 comments

  1. Megan says:

    Loved this Sally! I definitely LOL’d at the: ” trying to exorcise … I mean exercise” line. Your poem gifted me with the array of emotions, dread, hope, joy, nostalgia. You encapsulated a lifetime with a memory, really cool.

    • Sally Constain says:

      thank you, Megan, for your wonderful comment. It does my heart good to know that I have touched others with my words.

  2. Claire Massey says:

    Bittersweet memories of lost love are tenderly expressed in this poem. Even the buildings have been re-purposed, decades have passed, but still we remember, don’t we?

    • sally constain says:

      Thank you, Claire.
      I value your heartfelt understanding of my poem. For sure, it came from my heart. An unexpected memory inspired my poem.

  3. Calder Lowe says:

    What a powerfully and poignantly rendered poem. It leaves the reader with that familiar
    ache of an unrequited love from the past. The cadence and freshness of language is a testimony to Sally Constain’s poetic gifts.

    • sally constain says:

      Thanks very much, Calder,
      I certainly appreciate your understanding of my poem.
      Sometimes, heartache is the best inspiration for creativity.

    • sally constain says:

      Thanks, Mara,
      the past is the past.
      sometimes heartache can be beautiful, especially when it inspires a poem.

  6. Patricia Daly-Lipe says:

    Sally has written with emotion. We can all relate to some extent and, in our hearts, we can once again experience these memories just as Sally did as she let her words take her back to feel that moment in time.

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