Letter to a Stranger

 

 I keep a tryst

                        with myself, folding

            poem over poem

                        into my body,

            into my mouth; daily,

dismantle the silence

                                    I’ve created, a new child

            hood, placing the soft

angles in a basket

next to the hummingbird

                                                nest.  It is the summer 

after a winter that lasted

         well into the spring.  I have

                                                grown

            my hair long.  Certainly,

                        you will read this.  When

            you love me.  And you will

love me

well—a want,

                                    no longer a

            need.  Can you see

her patience?  That one

            egg, translucent.  After

I meet you, I will

                        long without you.

She’s spun a nest—

                                    mud and animal hair and dried grass.        

But I am not

lonely alone.  Breathe in,

            the peaches are almost

                        ready.  

The birds have

            left them.  For us.

___________

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