February 14
February 14
Original Text
J. A Hamilton, Steam Cleaning Love (Toronto: Brick Books, 1993): 41.
1Above me you turn like an acrobat
2on blue string,
3your feet small and accurate.
4You are so far away.
5My love is not enough to pull you
6through the landscaped sky
7to this night-wet garden.
8It is February.
9The bulbs are shooting,
10the moon is slipping
11dripping stars, hot and sticky.
12I am not with you, this simple fact.
13Here, I am alone,
14climbing from my underground incubation
15calling your name
16like dewdrop, crocus,
17narcissus.
18Tonguing the raw tender air.
19I miss you. Here and now,
20this moment,
21my body opens just one way,
22the way of the garden moving towards
23morning, towards March,
24June. Soon spring, that darling --
25Soon you, marking every cell of me.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2013
Rhyme
Form
Special Copyright
© Jane Eaton Hamilton, from whom permission to republish must be obtained in writing.