Hunger

“Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem
… I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.”

~ from “To You,” Walt Whitman

And now we’ve eaten of the roasted animal, the goat, the lamb, the calf or suckling pig; we’ve put our hands into the gunny sack to draw out twine and spangles fallen from the stars. We kissed each other beneath the trees until our teeth echoed with the salt of our desires. We washed away the aftertaste of meat with milk and cinnamon, given each other sweet after sweet after sweet. The trees are tipped with amber and with smoke, and the birds left there are startled into calling— they call out after the day that flickers in its easy goodbye, its love long as arms and shadows. And I too stand on the threshold before I close the door: Come back, come back; I love what I am, emblazoned with your tenderness.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.