Lung Thieves
Lung Thieves
by Mylo Reyes
Our gaze could drill holes in the side of our heads.
Skipping beats, snuck between blanket and bed.
Hearts stir the stars.
You and I could sit together,
in the grandstands,
and commit theft.
Trading Monarchs for breath.
And we’d laugh.
And our hearts would fuck.
And we’d cross our fingers,
that they wouldn’t end up fucking us.
I like the beginning of the poem, and then it grows obscure for me. “Our gaze could drill holes in the side of our heads” indicates staring intently at each other while one isn’t looking; a strong image for infatuation. Then it progresses–the two go to bed. “Hearts stir the stars,” very romantic. The third stanza intrigues me up to the last line. What does “trading Monarchs for breath” mean? Maybe I’m missing a reference here. Fourth stanza: I can see how in “the grandstands” of a public place, their “hearts would fuck”–without people knowing it–but then what does the last line mean? Presumably not finger fucking. That they, the couple, wouldn’t fuck themselves up?
I really love this piece.
“Trading Monarchs for breath,” to me, seems like a reference to feeling ‘butterflies,’ and is also reference to the title, perhaps. ‘Lung thieves,’ as in, stealing, or taking someone’s breath away? So in exchange for one’s breath, they give each other butterflies.
As for the last stanza, I think “that they wouldn’t end up fucking us” is a reference to their “hearts.” They would let them get into something dirty, perhaps complicated, “fuck,” without worry, in the grandstands of a public place just as you said. And I believe these lovers cross their fingers that the choice they made to let their hearts make love, wouldn’t fuck them over, like in a break up scenario.
samgirlmarshall, I can see how Monarchs could refer to butterflies, and “they” in the last line refers to “hearts,” not “fingers.” But “thieves” with its negative connotation of stealing makes it hard for me to believe that the lovers could be giving each other something.
That is quite a good point. Perhaps there in lies a meaning I was missing? With thieves being so negative as you say, love may not come as the “50/50 give-take” that TV sitcoms like to boast of, rather, that after every relationship, one person stole something from the other, be it good or bad.