I sleep with double pillows since you’re gone.
Is one of them for you—or is it you?
My bed is heaped with books of poetry.
I fall asleep on yellow legal pads.
Oh the orgies in stationery stores!
The love of printer’s ink & think new pads!
A poet has to fall in love to write.
Her bed is heaped with papers, or with men.
I keep your pillow pressed down with my books.
They leave an indentation like your head.
If I can’t have you here, I‘ll take cold type—
& words: the warmest things there are—
but you.
(Source: ericajong.com)
We used to strike sparks
off each other.
Our eyes would meet
or our hands,
& the blue lightning of love
would sear the air.
Now we are soft.
We loll
in the same sleepy bed,
skin of my skin,
hair of my head,
sweat of my sweat—
you are kin,
brother & mother
all in one,
husband, lover, muse & comforter;
I love you even better
without sparks.
We are pebbles in the tide
rolling against each other.
The surf crashes above us;
the irregular pulse
of the ocean drives our blood,
but we are growing smooth
against each other.
Are we living happily ever after?
What will happen
to my love of cataclysms?
My love of sparks & fire,
my love of ice?
Fellow pebble,
let us roll
against each other.
Perhaps the sparks are clearer
under water.
(Source: ericajong.com)
Bitter women,
there is milk under this poem.
What you sow in blood
shall be harvested in honey.
(Source: ericajong.com)
