Three Poems, Valentine's Day Edition

And I wanted to learn to say thank you,

like the refrains of grace

I never said as a child.

And I wanted to remember the way

you look in light;

to hold your hands in my hands,

to know the touch of you, to remember

the touch of you;

feeling the limits of my own body

and the stale air of your breath.

And now,

me, wanting to remember

you pressed against the pages

all saying against your body,

this is air.

I spent the Summer

with salt on my lips,

so that when it rained

I could taste the ocean.

And driving in my car,

I was so insistent on holding

your hand. While I touched your cheek,

we did not talk about

the light or coming snow,

the way water dripped

so carefully from our bodies,

something like sweat

and when we kissed

the word quenched was unrelenting

on my tongue.

Now,

I know desert drought

like the ache

of my own thirst,

or

the way it hurts

when you are here

the way it hurts

when you are not.

You were

a fractal of light

against the linen closet.

I will close that door

and open a new one,

hoping to find

less skeletons

in the stick of my spine

and to forgive

the light of new morning;

all, something like

love.

---

Eleanor grew up in Tucson, AZ. She loves the desert and her friends. Her current apartment is less than 200 square feet that she makes less lonely with poems and pictures of her parents. You can occasionally find her ranting about war and other bullshit she doesn’t like. Her bottles of choice are Orangina and the tears of boys.