You start, you say, by striking a match,
and I do, the kindling in your hands whisping
a dancing litter of foxes, winking
purple-orange, up and up, into smoke, and the fire
in your palms laps timidly against your fingers
until you tuck it into its lantern bed.
You say, tell me a story. You smooth my hair,
your hand illuminated wisteria before it retreats,
your hand a tapestry of forgotten things, your hand
blown glass, a sword, the scratch of ink on parchment.
Wet grass, damp earth, we sit inside a half-circle of pears,
rotting, still worth celebrating. You tug
a small wreath of stars from the sky, squeeze
them into a ball of clay, and you say, tell me
a story. The night can never be
as alive as you. This is a ghost story.
This is a love story. You mold a shallow bowl,
dip it through the air, come away with still water,
and you hold it out so that our faces blur
into each other, and I poke the surface, and we shake
last year’s storms from our wings. Yes, I fear
full light as much as I fear ignorance. I tell you
of fields of lavender transformed into women
transformed into crows for being ungrateful,
transformed back into women for being homely,
transformed into swans for talking too much, into rabbits
because the children are going hungry, into redwood forests
for safety, into women to teach children morals,
into stoats for obedience, fire for forgiveness, women
for mercy, wolves for reclamation, stars
for the unburdening. You say, the light is burning low.
You say, give me your hand. We walk into the woods,
into the gray, the lantern in your other hand, its laughter
growing faint, and I kiss you, and I kiss you,
and I kiss you until I can convince myself
that I leave nothing behind, that some river still knows
our names and wants us, calls us home.
About the Author
Mary Simmons is a queer writer from Cleveland, Ohio. She earned her poetry MFA from Bowling Green State University, where she also served as the managing editor for Mid-American Review. She has work in or forthcoming from Moon City Review, One Art, Beaver Magazine, Yalobusha Review, The Shore, Whale Road Review, and others.
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