Perfect Strikes

It’s 4am and I can’t sleep
it’s the mere thought of you –
my fingers are forcing me to do this
I’ve never been this desperate before

I arch my back
you hold above
a few selected letters
you angle them over me
you touch them to my skin
like sparks electric in patterns such
as a, x and e, or plain as a, b and c

I’m 41 and my pores are open for your business

It isn’t sex this thing I need
it’s someone, not just anyone –
you someone
to curate my skin
like a burn
like moon drops
like tantrums

It’s the need for you to know
I would swim with sharks
if it meant I could hold
your hand – our opposable fingers
would understand how
to intertwine, my brain would be
too dizzy with puppy love
to remember the steps
for falling down stairs
just for the chance of this
dew-eye newness

These last few days
I’ve been living on dinners
of butterflies and lightning bugs
waltzing in the dusk
under a razor sharp sky –
sustain this fever – I cannot
these words are not enough
they won’t see me through ‘till morn –
It’s the hope that you might
stroke my face, die in my arms
sip me like wine, live on lips
on fingertips, that run through grey hair –
not even caring

It never lasts for long
but I would take it for one moment
than to wait alone
for your words not coming –

Employing rituals like
make the coffee,
select the clothes,
play Gardenscapes like a robot zord

Inserting any mundane miracle to
usurp my desire
for stanzas and line breaks
in your perfect strikes of typing.

~~~

Elisabeth Horan is a poet and mother living in Vermont and writing her heart out. She likes animals and gentle tolerant humans. @ehoranpoet