I want to hold you
Because I know you will hold me, too.
I want to hide myself somewhere in the crook of your neck
Beneath your hair, between your breasts,
Not because the world will solve itself
While I am there hiding,
And not because it can’t see me
When I close my eyes
And turn farther into your chest,
But because I am a storm cloud which lost
Its thunder and can’t tell if it’s simply departed
Like disco or a divorced wife with the kids,
Or if it somehow got buried and I just lost the map,
Because, for a moment, the span of a few minutes,
The hemisphere of an hour, the minute hand
Sailing the white sea of inevitably with a tacit
severity, I can escape—tuck myself away
and withdraw into the translucent cocoon of your love,
both with you and inside of you, and your love,
intangible at all times but these, moments
when it softly solidifies, like moonlight
mist descending into dew upon the skin
of folding flowers, tulips and lilacs
bowing their heads in sleep or prayer
or both, and I charge and rest, and your chest
and your silence say everything in the way an envelope
knows everything about a letter from their simple friction,
its fingers gliding like water over stone, somehow not just reading
but knowing, the water a half-mile downstream tasting
just perceptibly of granite, because, somehow, here in this living room,
upon this sofa, I am on Everest and can taste the upper atmosphere
and see everything I forgot there was to see, and I can explain
nothing but understand everything, and, then, because, before
the dryer’s buzz or the movie’s end respectfully, promptly, aptly
summons us, before the phone rings or the macaroni begins
to burn, the lightning returns to the heart of the cloud,
the thunder is restored, singing baritone rings around the rain,
waiting to pour out again, and we unfold
Because I know you will hold me, too.
I want to hide myself somewhere in the crook of your neck
Beneath your hair, between your breasts,
Not because the world will solve itself
While I am there hiding,
And not because it can’t see me
When I close my eyes
And turn farther into your chest,
But because I am a storm cloud which lost
Its thunder and can’t tell if it’s simply departed
Like disco or a divorced wife with the kids,
Or if it somehow got buried and I just lost the map,
Because, for a moment, the span of a few minutes,
The hemisphere of an hour, the minute hand
Sailing the white sea of inevitably with a tacit
severity, I can escape—tuck myself away
and withdraw into the translucent cocoon of your love,
both with you and inside of you, and your love,
intangible at all times but these, moments
when it softly solidifies, like moonlight
mist descending into dew upon the skin
of folding flowers, tulips and lilacs
bowing their heads in sleep or prayer
or both, and I charge and rest, and your chest
and your silence say everything in the way an envelope
knows everything about a letter from their simple friction,
its fingers gliding like water over stone, somehow not just reading
but knowing, the water a half-mile downstream tasting
just perceptibly of granite, because, somehow, here in this living room,
upon this sofa, I am on Everest and can taste the upper atmosphere
and see everything I forgot there was to see, and I can explain
nothing but understand everything, and, then, because, before
the dryer’s buzz or the movie’s end respectfully, promptly, aptly
summons us, before the phone rings or the macaroni begins
to burn, the lightning returns to the heart of the cloud,
the thunder is restored, singing baritone rings around the rain,
waiting to pour out again, and we unfold
( Chris Bernstorf )
www.ChordsAZ.com