Author: Elizabeth Maynard

I speed with you
new companions
in the dark
under this great city
the glow of screens
distracts from
warm sparks hidden
under winter layers
brighter still

Arousal template:
what wakes you up and come to
your splendid senses

I hold my breath remembering:
it could have been me

It is too much to credit myself
with a clever word or diversion
it would have been me

We make ourselves safe at night
thinking we saw it coming
stepped aside and let it hit
some fragile stranger

It is too much to know
it should have been me

In this world someone
knows with his whole beating heart
'tis you hung the moon

This morning
let this world lift its own self up
without you
and your long list of demands
and complicated plans
for the kind of person
you think you must be

Only so many dumplings left to eat
before I wing my way
to the land of dry bread and crackers
a desert in my throat
instead of this morning
sun glinting off the Huangpu
and vinegar's bright kiss

We'll drink this toast
to a poet
dead and buried
or perhaps gently scattered
on a warm wind
her words resting
on each leaf and petal
and among the small stones
along the bank
where she walked
and thought and
scratched a verse to herself
as she found her way home
from every heartbreak

How we need to be seen
even here in this hole
in the earth
from which stones
were lifted hand by hand
until today we lean
across the edge
smile in our finest clothes
and ask no one in particular
do you see me
am I here?

To live a life extraordinary
I must decide
where I will live:
In days unfinished and despair
at my helplessness to mend
or break and let those fragments
fall and lay byzantine mosaic
over which I build
each new cathedral

I made it through Mandarin
on cold brew
and salsa dancing
each day befuddled
tongue tied and twisted
in ways only caffeine
and your warm hands
could unfold