Lenni Sanders

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First Lessons

Here’s a (your) body. I’ll be upfront,
I’m a hyperventilating schlub and I’m so worried
that I won’t give you what you need, or you
won’t like me at all. But there are things like this

you might one day look ahead at your friend
cycling at the same pace as you three feet ahead
on the fern-shadowed sunny loop, and feel so much
full of love that eggs everywhere spontaneously hatch,
that no leaves fall anywhere in the world for a full minute.

And snails eat strawberries with circular mouths,
and you can give someone the benefit of the doubt.
I have to tell you also there are terrible things

and if you are anything like me you will slam
the back of your head against walls. Real laughter
is something to look forward to and so is looking
at fish just under the surface of the water. You can sleep,
there is sunlight, and you’ll feel alone, too:

if you’re lucky, it’s just a feeling, until the last alone:
which is so big nobody knows where the middle of it is,
which is so quiet you can’t feel anything under your feet.

Till then, here’s the populous bizarro everything, here’s
good and bad air for your nose, here’s your feet,
put on your shoes (like this!), let’s go outside.

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LENNI SANDERS is a writer living in Manchester. Their pamphlet Poacher is out with The Emma Press and their poems have been published in The Tangerine, Butcher’s Dog and elsewhere.