Leslie Grollman

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How Our Bodies: A Love Poem

not as crow so eager to peck the choicest parts, 
     to morsel the heart, but sharpen
                                             the eyes, love, not
                to blind but to transpierce  

                                   never as if a tube of toothpaste, 
                  to use, to empty, then on to the next;
     do squeeze, yes, as if to pump
                                        some stagnant blood

nor as a night-blooming cereus that clams up in the morning
  but an occasional Selenicereus grandifloras, 
     that blooms one night a year, withers within hours  

and not like jigsaws of one thousand pieces 
                           but one thousand ways to intrigue

definitely not existentialized in amber and taking out the trash
    but do spread some viscid, yes (on both of us)
       ride the sticky slide
                                    skin as sled
                    tongue as agent provocateur

       taste           
                           waft
                                   upheave the breath to panting
not a skyscraper
                    but climb,   

reach 

not a black hole
but oh,                  we elongate into this

eternity; not to never 
return, but still, our bodies

intertwine, constellate, burn–

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LESLIE GROLLMAN’s work appears in BeZine, StreetCake, Sweet Lit, Moist, Writing Utopia 2020, The Selkie, Thimble, Nailed, others and is forthcoming. She earned an MSc Creative Writing, Poetry, with Distinction, from University of Edinburgh in 2020 at age 70.