Facing West: Prose Poem

Eyes wide and groping

Photo by Mason Kimbarovsky on Unsplash

I wake surrounded by your words
by remembering the dreams with eyes wide and groping
but not feeling/fearing the dark; traveling with everything I own — hands and breath and legs, the back that aches for your touch and face — ah, a face love to turn towards

so I was — before — standing in a ravine, close to a field dominated by dandelions and robins — before I left for the city and the ravens that soar around my spirit — hmm…I’m standing facing west imagine you looking east towards this swamp and birch and maple and elm —

I kiss your gifts — always — and soothed and jarred by longing I recreate the words, the sound of your voice like consciousness bounces in my head — desire unbound like a wild mane of hair —

I wake bound up
by a tongue caressed soliloquy —
reaching for the next/tonight’s Evening Star — sitting forwards in my mind legs that journey through the darkness with me and seek embrace — I lean towards you and, leaning, fall — and touching everything I continue the fall…till it looks like one hand

is supporting the other.

J.D. Harms 2022