Some things hurt;
we are all bruised.
In this body, a pretty body: my heart
a bloody thunderclap
the bones of my neck
like balloon strings,
tethering and tethered
When I’m not lying down
(or stretching or moving or
sitting or squatting or crouching)
I am standing:
not quite statue, not quite tree
not quite as inexhaustible
as a garden shed.
Some people think that all of these words
– I, body, tree – are virtually the same
but because I’m also wind and wave
so crookedly contained
I say to them nu-uh: with a small click
at the back of my
pretty throat.
This feeling’s not the worst but if I could master re-feeling
I would choose that first summer, a dark room
my fingers searching
your thickness of hair
transmitting these words
from your brain to mine (so pretty) –
life, legs, now
back when we were famished
too full to move – remember?
Our after-breath like wind, our skin like waves.
I remember, as a summer night might:
bedside lamp and shadow
window open to the street
no other feeling existing.
