Loving Now
you were my past and future
but mostly you were my now
wild hair gypsy eyed mad man
dancing between sunlight and midnight
carrying the rain in your arms
rain that sang out cool jazz
rain that never
never
stopped pulsing
on the windowpane
above your bed
your neck is what got me the most-
it still does
it’s a man’s neck-
a cowboy neck
a searching neck
a neck that wouldn’t wear a tie
couldn’t be told where to turn
an adrenaline proud hard neck of the jungle
with no past and no future
a neck of now
we lived off the grid in our own time
that had nothing to do with clocks
tides or seasons
you’d pile wood into the furnace mouth
more wood than the furnace could swallow
as the fire crackled sounding like a language-
a fire language
a higher language
a love tongue rough like a cat’s tongue language
licking away at the years that spun us
like two suns
muses too dizzy
crazy blue fire flames
like fingers strumming
when you played guitar I knew
you were content and sometimes dark
either way
your voice and tune were better than you thought
I craved you like a honeyed pecan
I still do
even though
you don’t crave me
not that way
hardly that way
anymore
you always took such good care of your bushy ferns
putting them in the stall shower to quench their thirst
pruning the dried edged leaves
hanging them in the sunniest windows
around your house
I wish I was a fern
instead I am a river stone
you think I don’t need you to quench my thirst
you think the river water does that job for me
you think I am done
but I was never done
I am
just lost
tracking your shift from one foot to the other
as you inch backwards
and my spinning lasso no longer reaches your gaze
when you loved me
really loved me
our past were our roots
our future was our bloom
our now was our home
Loretta Oleck’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in High Coupe, Black Lawrence Press, Word Riot, The Westchester Review, Feminist Studies, The Mom Egg, among numerous others. More recently her work has been read at The Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art. She holds a Masters degree in Creative Writing from New York University.
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