Given
I was given these two hands,
these two feet; I was given them
without asking and they are mine.
With my feet on your body I do walk
on frozen ground where coyotes step,
fishers, raccoons, and quail.
With my breath I inhale
your sweet liquor, the cold snap
of four degrees; how my lungs
crave your air inside me,
its green perfume, though now
your body is slick with ice,
hard with frost, tasting green
though I must cover my mouth
with a purple scarf to take you in.
Each morning this is how I wake,
with you upon my lips.
Laura Rodley © 2014
Pushcart Prize winner and nominated for Best of the Net five times, Laura Rodley has work published in Best Indie Lit New England, Massachusetts Review, and Hunger Mountain among others. She is editor and publisher of As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, a compilation of memoirs from seniors age 70 through 95. If this poem gives you a chill, check out Laura’s poem “Stifling Heat” which was published last summer (July 17, 2013) at The New Verse News.
Laura Rodley’s chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Massachusetts Book Award nominee, won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award and an L. L.Winship/Penn New England Award.
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