IMAGINE! HIS LEFT HAND CRADLING MY HEAD, HIS RIGHT ARM AROUND MY WAIST! I CHARGE YOU, SISTERS: DO NOT AWAKEN LOVE UNTIL IT SO DESIRES
I tithe 10% of my new underwear to my future
self, the one who has fallen in love.
I hide it under my mattress. I forget
to fall in love. I live until my hair is long and white.
When I die, I stick around for a while.
My future self, undulating like a moon,
discovers my stash. I watch her smooth the lace
over her hips, over her moon and stars. She fans
her fingers and presses them against her belly, brushes the tip
of her thumb against a pink bow.
But has she fallen in love? I ask. Have you?
I ask
standing behind her in the mirror.
LEANNE DRAPEAU is a teacher and writer from Connecticut, USA. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and an MFA candidate at Randolph College in Virginia.
What are you reading? Here at B O D Y we’ve always got a tome or two open, and we're happy to recommend these recent books.
Me, I’m the opposite, of course – my soul is in full view, as if it weren’t just my shirt that was ripped but my flesh too, and it’s right here, my clownish soul, winking at you with a tear in its eye, because like a steam engine it’s powerful and full of emotion at the same time.
say it /
briefly //
like /
a finch’s whistle
The wildflowers wilt over their own feet as I stagger through the dusty, jaded soil. One of my legs is broken. My mouth is parched.
My sisters, deep in our cells, are still feeding me. /
But I know I will be their last queen.
These captivating poems dedicated to Keats and Lucie Brock-Boido pay equal attention to the visible and the invisible worlds—and seem hauntingly comfortable in both.
A different me is silhouetted in the lit windows of every house I drive //
past – me: reading a book, me: making dinner, me: alone staring back.
It was growing dark in the garden. I felt, suddenly, enormous, as vast as the night. I could see all the way to California, where two little girls dragged their unwheeled suitcases through a cavernous airport
I am waiting for you. Part of my wall /
will need to go to get you in. It will /
never heal. This is how they’ll find me, /
small, perfunctory, unfit for a king, but /
I’ll hold it all
We moved along, discussing this injustice. It was small in the larger scope of the war, and all-consuming for one woman
