Written piece
Palindrome for a Shy Gentleman
Caroline Mwangi
Kenya
About this piece
A palindrome by desire, not design. Read forwards, then backwards if the moment comes. For anyone carrying a love that frays without snapping — some threads refuse to sever, some seams simply ask to be reseamed.
A Friday late night full of flavour,
at that balcony aglow with the moonlight.
Not even my bashfulness could fetter my desire—
he, the pyromaniac of my flammable heart.
His hands spanned my curves
with the deftness of Bernini on Proserpina—
Apparently I Am Irresistible.
Ipse dixit.
Truly magnetic I am, but not faultless.
I hurt him more than once, from a place of love.
Counterintuitive as it sounds,
I’d sooner be hurt than insensible of feeling—
lodged deep inside me like an embolism,
mysterious like a Roman dodecahedron.
My mood was bleak and dreary.
* * *
For the shy gentleman — in case you and I ever decide to
read it backwards.