Breathing Ballad by Jodie Baeyens

If you never again
picked up a pen
and scrawled sweet odes
to my beauty and strength
across a page,
it would be no matter to me.

You would remain
my breathing ballad.

The way you stand taller
when you see me
enter the room...

The words you write
across my naked body
with your love...

The space you held
inside your heart for a lifetime
not letting anyone else touch...

The fate we may not
understand
but no longer question...

I need no poetry from you,
though I will gladly consume it all.

You have and will remain,
the perfect poem to me.

About the Poet:

Jodie Baeyens is a professor at American Military University. She was deposited in Arizona from Manhattan, against her will, and now lives in a rural farming community writing poetry and drinking red wine. Her poetry has most recently been featured in Door is a Jar and in Peregrine’s Fall Journal.