Poem Post

[grav_ity]

It's still poetry month, right? I always lose track of these things.

Anyway, inlovewithnight post this and I'm posting it here too because...well, because it's beautiful.

To my friend who is a woman and a poet, like me

You called me a poet
and took me in your arms, laughing
with the terror of it. So close—
And I, shut down, dreaming of a stranger
shedding his sealskin while the moon rose
over an empty beach—I did not see you,
though I looked into the black pits
of your eyes, and held you
breasts against breasts, your image
mine, and I, the same as you.

You called me a poet.
You—the poet—
So now I will believe you
I will take your gift and make words of it;
Perhaps I am falling
into another love, that expects nothing.
You kissed me—you—
but no man ever said I was a poet.

I wish you a lover, gentle as the waves on the beach
that is perhaps less empty when we are not there.
I wish you the invisible dance
on the shores of consciousness,
slipping back to the sea at daylight.
I wish you poetry
and lust, kisses deep and salt as the sea,
words that pierce like morning,
love poured down, running over the sand into water.
And because you say I am a poet,
I wish myself the same.

[Margaret Elphinstone]

Mostly the last verse, I think. *hearts her f-list*