Read Poem: KING SIZE BED, by Marli Merker Moreira

The mattress is fit.
It feels inviting:
A hug,
Kiss,
Unzip of a ruse.

Silent,
Stiff,
Lonesome,
Deaf and mute,
It is a bed for dreams.
–her stuff is melancholy.

Here they are
On the bed she once bought :
He holds papers,
Then takes a sleeping aid.
The man vanishes
Into the last frontier,
At five centimeters
from drowning into the carpet.

She sees life
Move around the dark
bedroom drapes.
Where is the guy
Who vowed to love her?

It is past and gone.
The bed she bought years before

Oh, a king-size bed never to move.
Never to feel a hug.
Never to breathe love.
He keeps distant:
Work and sleep.
Rerun stock game
He is the only one to play.

She is now free
Of any green spectacles.

The idol
Selfishness builds
Becomes a rude statue of salt.
Sent naïf tears
To her old merry-go-round movies,
Beyond the sullen drapes,
Around their bed, it was so cold.

She discards masquerade.
Tricked no more, she sets apart
Love from brine.

Now, she detects his contours.
Who wants his embrace?

She carries newborn ideas
For a life of song and care.
She rejects a secondhand turn.

Ready to shell out,
She blooms
And, Woman,
She shines again.