Against the open palm of your dusk
I place my fist into your first
day of spring and you sing about death
by the sink as you make tea. There was no light
pollution and the stars were before
You had instructed me not to take
off my shoes in case there were
scorpions on the patio, on the cabin
wall, or in the sky curling its tail to sting.
When I first learned we held the same
birthday, I thought November 16th held
a deeper meaning. Scorpions are known
to sting. When my birthday comes around
I think of how I’ve grown older than you
by over a decade. Your bones are in
a ravine and have not been found.
Living mindfully is what you taught
about grace. You curl my fingers down
each by each. A metal roadrunner adorns
the gate you get out of the car to open
and chain lock behind us before you return
to the driver’s seat. We talk about how
a lover’s kiss becomes a ghost within
us passing through to another’s touch.
Avoid edges and boundaries, all things
learning toward an end. I call
to you at dusk. You are dead and I
still want to speak with you. The clasp
of both your hands cups around my fist
like tied shoelaces and unbuckled
trust at the brim. March brings a couple
of things: November’s incipient spring
and roadrunner’s feet. Your palm remains
in the ravine’s remains, in the absence of light
pollution, the next kiss. In the center of every sun there is
the fire within what we hold driving us.
Toni Holland’s awards include a student Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Alberta, residency at The Millay Colony for the Arts, two at The Vermont Studio Center; she’s lived in Shakespeare and Company. Her work has appeared in Illya’s Honey, Jelly Bucket, Tau, Rip Rap, and Poetry International: CinEpoetry, New Letters.
