RAPTURE WHEN WALKING

RAPTURE WHEN WALKING
Allison Grayhurst
 
Celestial pine and
words like this that stick
to the roof of my mouth –
tight, tense, forceful like flesh
compressed, elongated.
These fattened senses, I sense
it is not normal to look at the bodies of
trees and see a mouth, a breast, hips in
permanent thrust, thrusting into to the grey mass
of clouds that are brought frequently to their bloated threshold
then drained in a steady relief. I know all animals are naked and people
think themselves clothed, but vanity and the undercurrent of striving
are photographs etched on their exposed arms, necklines, and
sometime I might lift my lips, press them completely into
the vines, step a day onto another’s shore, lose my gender and be drenched.
Sometimes, I feel you like a prying lover, impatient with our
differences, anguished by the things that separate us. You have
no use for me, alone. You claim victory, destroy my shell
and make us join, make me not so small but swallowing
everything that is you, like smoke inhaled or
perfume on the tongue. You again, and that
is good because you must know how much I need this chaos
exploding, lingering, desperate to find synchronicity,
then arriving – order and beauty, exact. You must know.
Oh there! I see it. You gave me an eyelid. I am coming
            sweet, silk, surrounded
to this place. My God, I am
home.

©2012 This work is the property of the author.