Sometimes I work on a poem for weeks. Or I give up and let it sit unwritten in my Notes for years. This one took nothing at all. It’s the kind that comes with such clarity of feeling that it almost writes itself. They don’t come that often but when they do I get that giddy, heart-rising-to-my-throat feeling, like falling in love; the ultimate high.
Untitled
You might think
If you met me on the summer solstice
I’d been studded with light
Holes punched in a tin can lantern
You might see
Freckles on my shoulders
And think
I could keep warm next to her
You might get me all wrong
Watching me
Tease the night
On the longest day
If you waited
You’d see me in the woods
Shaking leaves from the trees
Smelling like November
Moss, smoke, and wet bark
With enough time
You would watch me
Become the parts of the forest
That disappear
Into themselves
You’d see me
Walking into the dark
For a glowing ember
On the longest night