Maia Brown-Jackson

Make my body a shrine

I need help because
for the first time
words are failing me.
My pen has run dry
and the typewriter keys are just a jumbled pile on the floor.

So I must make due.

I kiss Neruda into your collarbone
and think of cherry trees.

I lick Carver into your mouth
and promise, beloved, no early morning talks;
no one can reach us now.

I bite Rumi against your shoulder and 
let you devour me in this violent world—

You make my body a shrine
and I strive to stop yearning so quiet
so you know that yes, I, too—
Yes, I, too—

I don’t say,
Here are my carotid and my aortic and my femoral,
tender from your fingers because 
yes, I am here to breathe for you (yes); because
yes, my flesh is here to be the canvas
    for your bruising teeth and tongue (yes); because
yes, because I don’t care what you do (yes)
if afterwards you press
your lips, gentle, to my skin.

You stole my words,
with your breath, with your mouth—
Now I’m forced to borrow,
to steal,
but if you keep looking at me like that while I do
then (yes) I’ll keep pretending to be a poet.

***

Edited version of “Lost my words,” published in the 27^th Poetry Ink Anthology by Moonstone Press, 2023