With these dire portents we'll learn the language of knees, shoulder blades, chins but not the first floor up, shinbones, the incomprehensible belly buttons of childhood, heels and the soles of our feet, spines and neckbones, risque photos of the tender inside of elbows, tumescent fingers draw the outlines of lost parts on the wall; bottom and pubis Delphic, unapproachable as Jupiter, a memory worn as the first love we knew, ourselves a test pattern become obsession: this love in the plague years - we used to kiss a mirror to see if we were dead. Now we relearn the future as we learned to walk, as a baby grabs its toes, tilts backward, rocking. Tonight I'll touch your wrist and in a year perhaps grind my blind eye's socket against your hipbone. With all this death, behind our backs, the moon has become the moon again. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DEVOURER OF NATIONS by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET SOLDIER by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON BUCOLIC COMEDY: WHY by EDITH SITWELL A SOLDIER LISTENS by JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: LUCINDA MATLOCK by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |