I'd like it if you
wrestled your fingertips under my ribcage and
pressed your palms
against my sides and felt,
conveyed across
the gauze of my skin,
my heartbeat racing in
my kidneys and
if you traced,
with two little toes,
four tendons
entwining my ankles and
if your eyelashes pretended to be
newborn jellyfish
toying with newfangled tentacles
across my bare shoulder blades and
if your tongue was a diving board
for lovely words plunging
into the ebbing oceanic air pockets
between us and
if your hands were seakelp,
leathery tendrils impossibly woven into my scalp,
a short tether
ensuring my submerged lips and nostrils
never shatter the glassy surface
Feb 4, 2018
Feb 4, 2018 at 10:48 PM UTC
I'd like it if you
wrestled your fingertips under my ribcage and
pressed your palms
against my sides and felt,
conveyed across
the gauze of my skin,
my heartbeat racing in
my kidneys and
if you traced,
with two little toes,
four tendons
entwining my ankles and
if your eyelashes pretended to be
newborn jellyfish
toying with newfangled tentacles
across my bare shoulder blades and
if your tongue was a diving board
for lovely words plunging
into the ebbing oceanic air pockets
between us and
if your hands were seakelp,
leathery tendrils impossibly woven into my scalp,
a short tether
ensuring my submerged lips and nostrils
never shatter the glassy surface
Request permission to use this poem