Love Poem

Cecily Parks

I begin on an uncertainty of asphalt.
I run with my mouth open. I open my mouth to breathe
into yours. On a whim
the Queen Anne’s lace offers the roadside a galaxy.
I run. You take care of my breath.
You take care of it again.
Is this a practice of trust
or a consequence of summer’s washes and decoctions?
Like one admonished for not darkening enough
my nights, I ask further into the inflorescent
quiet. Once a woods, always a woods.
The sky begins at my mouth: star, moon, meteoric truck.
I find the wind. You find my west.
The contours of the pasture
repeat the contours of animals who wake
in the promise of grass.
I love exhaustion. I love it again.

Cecily Parks is a poet whose collections include O'Nights and and Field Folly Snow.
Originally published:
April 1, 2013

Featured

All at Once, the Multiverse Is Everywhere

Why today's movies, TV shows, and literature love branching timelines and many worlds
David M. de León

The Mother's Rage

Elena Ferrante and the torment of maternal love
Josh Cohen

On Anton Shammas's "Arabesques"

Revisiting the first major book in Hebrew by an Arab writer
Ratik Asokan

You Might Also Like

The Couples

Jean Valentine


Subscribe

New perspectives, enduring writing. Join a conversation 200 years in the making. Subscribe to our print journal and receive four beautiful issues per year.
Subscribe