-
Crossing Continents
For when you get there
At the edge of a foreign dune,
I see you in love
With your hands and feet,
Between the ground where you
And God meet.
Love encircles itself and
Becomes a sandstorm that you
Stand at the heart of.
You are praying,
Laying your legs over desert sand,
Allowing yourself
To sit still
Until Joshua trees bend
Over dry hills.
Like skin touching water
And wind lovingly wiping
The sweat from your brow-
I love you just like that.
-
King David and Ashibag
One hour before nightfall,
My breath travels down
The stretch of a breathing hall.
Tonight, I share my bed
With a dying King.
King David calls me young
Before day lays light on bedsheets.
He reaches for the warmth
Of flesh, saying
“Abishag,
You are the virgin I liked best.”
Eyes closed and hair tucked
Behind his ears,
He listens to
The uncracking of walls.
The sound of my breath
Rings around the room,
Like children playing barefoot
In desert sand.
I close my eyes and dream.
I see lovers
Under my mother’s willow tree
In Shunem of Galilee.
Kind David speaks to me,
“Tonight, my dear, I’m only 23.
Come closer and warm this space
Next to me.”
-
The Diner
30 years go,
before her ankles swelled over
brass coffee tables
and couch cushions,
my mother lived down
this street.
In June of 1991,
she sat by open
restaurant windows
and allowed her legs
to lean her whole body
back in already
leaning chairs.
For a month, her lips covered the
rims of half-dry coffee cups.
when she paid her check,
she let
passersby’s watch how
her coffee-stained
lipstick always managed
to leave its
mark.
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