for M.
So many days wishing against bone,
flesh cruel enemy, mirror my captor.
Yet, as years gather—lover’s bouquet
of wildflowers that blaze and fade—
your arms all this time surround me like water,
your arms also the raft perched atop water,
like how feathered bodies ride—bones
filled with currents of air, drift and hold,
in your arms, weightless, buoyant,
swell and float, hushed embrace, fresh
rush of strength sluicing uncertain liturgy.
I marvel at the simplicity:
how generously the heart can bend
if left to follow its own ends. I follow. You,
my reflective glass, specter and shadow,
flame and wave. Slip closer, thigh coiled,
spread of skin on torso, what else should I
dare ask for? In the dark I know my shape:
sashay and friction, soft night, velvet slide,
all I feel I feel from this sublime stage, this
rapturous reprieve, from this tender hunger.
I’m filled to be in a body, that I have a body
to fill, and for a moment, all the meadows,
every ocean is mine.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 1.
Kathryn Petruccelli is a host, performer, and writer with an MA in teaching English language learners. Some of her recent work has been published in RHINO, Whale Road Review, About Place Journal, Anacapa Review, and Wrong Turn Lit. Kathryn teaches workshops online through SOBI: Small Observances, Big Ideas.
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