Peter Fifield

The Poetic Writer Peter Fifield

Publisher Marketing: Come Home to Me. I have taken down the bleeding crimson curtains in the windows by the hall in favor of colors more reminiscent of the icy winters you're used to, and more resembling the baby blue tulips I have just placed in the box on the ledge of your window. Your room still overlooks the hills, rolling green interrupted only by brush strokes of yellow and indigo weeds. I take it back. They are not all undesirable. I used to know you by a different name. A name with softer consonants and gentler syllables. If you write to me and tell me that is your name no longer, you will never again hear it from my lips; but if you leave me to myself, I will not find the will or want to cease etching its old characters into my love poems. This is not a love poem. This is about the house you belong in. And if you asked your mother she'd tell you she saw me weeping in the back corner of the church two Sundays ago, and that things are rough now, and I could use a friend. And your sister would tell you I fish for news of you and your adventures like I am desperate for anything to bring home and place on my table tonight. The one we built together backwards and then had to start again, giggling into our third glasses of white wine; trust and knowing and love stacked on top of each other into a series of sideways smirks and glances. Come home to me. I want to be your best friend again. Contributor Bio:  Fifield, Peter Chris Ackerley is Professor of English at the University of Otago, New Zealand.