What I Am Telling You
by Marina Gipps

Do you understand that moat of whiteness?
Where we said our I do’s lifted in a cloud of never.
Where blanched sheets covered our desires
of desktop plumes and smoked cigarettes.
Do you understand that moat of whiteness?
The one where I said what I would not have said.
Clouded it seems everyday as if changing.
For I am no more than a forgotten, rotten root.
Standing here beside what should have been-waiting.
Do you understand that moat of whiteness?
If I ask again tomorrow I won’t expect an answer.
Shan’t ask-yet shall continue to write until
that Oppressor stops hounding me with messages.
Do you understand that moat of whiteness?
Sometimes I see it through a window-willowing off.
Even hear its vague whisper in the tedium of darkness.
It tells me naughty might be nice-so it asks again,
Do you understand that moat of whiteness?
Why the birds kill you with their song in the early dawn.
Why the sun should never come up-so you may sleep.
Why the moon is forever a nuisance for the least serene.
Do you truly understand that moat of whiteness?

💐