In The Garden, Sensitive and Touching
I was then for her
what I was now
when I told her she was going
and she was bare and sensitive
I was there when
she was out
I told her she knew me
there were strawberries in her hands
I plucked them with
softened praise
and attentive touch
my finger holding back blood
she plucked them too
in the garden
where there was nakedness
and strawberries on the bushes hands
we shook hands with the leaves
we shook hearts with each other
she grabbed me in her
bareness and surrendered me
we fell like mourning glories
to ripples and swells
and left the plucking
to the skeletal ones
I felt her
when I was out there
beyond where she wasn’t
I kissed a memory
I wasn’t without
nor searching
for nothing within
I found her, I was wet and cold
In the fall
our morning stories
crept along the shiver
of skin and muscle
we were bare and sensitive
and too young to know much more.
