Many Hopes

2024

Will you draw me?

Will you savor my shadows?

You’re skittish,

Peering out at me from safety, security.

It tempers me, and in the tempering

A blip of hope escapes.

I see you seeing me, but I don’t know what you see.

My many hopes are my many lovers.

One night I lay awake

Making love to wild, consuming hope.

Hope that we will–any moment now–

Become lovers, obsessed.

Both rent open

Both desperately clinging–

Pressing our bodies closer and closer.

Each other’s wide open body the shelter

That will protect us from pain.

Another hope, another lover.

I stand, grave and serious, watching you.