From Word To Word

I like words best when they do not pretend to be adequate, though this means that I am not often a fan of my own writing. This is why I write poetry, I think, to let my words be inadequate, as much as I am able.

In Hesitation

The day hesitates, draws a lover’s breath,
A gasp, poised and waiting, on pleasure’s edge,
And lifts its face to the still coming rain,
To the long-promised rain, coming, still to come,
And it waits, the day, it waits and expects
A dampness on its cheeks, like sudden tears
That wash the stone feet of the door, that kiss
And betray the touch of the threshold’s lips,
And all things come to be, here, in this breath
And in this hesitation, here, alone,
In this gasp that offers and withholds them,
Like a true gift, ungiven, unreceived,
To a lover, whose pleasure comes to be,
But only in the breath that makes it wait.