Member Poem

(a Golden Shovel based on line 1 of Gwendolyn Brooks' “when you have forgotten Sunday: the love-story”)

Except that i can’t undo the threadbare callous of Your fingertips. --And,
what’s more, i don’t want to. When
i lie down, i remember what the sage could not snuff out, You
have a scent that sticks. Have
again this thigh, lulled from sleep, this navel, forgotten
and pulsing. i have been crying every night at the
clock-strike of 3, trying to blink away Your teeth, bright,
and the breath that passed through them, warm. The cool of my bedclothes
now is a bite, and i sing for hours but never find the tune. On
my chest, only my hands, bitter and empty, where You were a
stubborn anchor once. Every Wednesday
i followed the curve of Your tongue like a commandment and
ended at the lock of Your jaw, a
moansighbreath-- caught there, kept there, and pulled out in secret on Saturday