Sunday, April 13, 2008

April 13 : holding by Jo Reyes-Boitel

All the poetry events in town, the search for found or rediscovered poetry and even my own application for graduate school have woken up the gutteral part within myself, that core chakra. It pulls out this possessive, compulsive part of me, this passionate part. Ay, that's enough, no? Here's a poem I wrote this last week. Most certainly a draft.

I’ll ask you straight up: what of yours can I keep
when you are so far away from me?

what can I get away with? stealing that will give me
a slap on the wrist, some should have known better glance?

what can I move a little of each day, in such tiny bits
you will not notice until finally it is in my pockets

and you realize, weeks later, it can’t be found
I keep it – rub it between my fingers,

hands in pockets, claiming I can’t recall? why
do I come up with these scenarios for taking you?

for the chance to acquaint myself with your tufted hair,
to call home your work smell cardboard and cinnamon

to have you say my name, to lift it from within yours
this is not obsessive love, this is ownership

as much as it is the story of your calling me over to you
it is all the same

No comments: