David Eileen

T4T as a Thousand Lovers’ Golden Mean

I never knew how many bodies there were
out there, all the figures in mandala configuration,
all the recipes for different parts that were kept forbidden
from me. As if some lovers are less frequent than others. Outliers.
Your body was a new type to mine, precious reinvention of tired ways,
a newness that made me new under you. My body did begin as your usual
assignment: familiar cartoon curves already mapped. My body not a novel meaning
but new by way of who's inside it & maybe also special because my ass defies the pinch
at my waist & springs abundant out of nowhere. Nonsensically. Special because I have a million
asses waiting under this ass: my party ass, the figure 8, the infinity (figure 8 repeated), evil ass,
the mother's biding ass, my hidden ass, the butt of dreams. You & your ass were new to me,
so singular: one way in, one way out, the type of round trip I'd never let myself take before.
You talked me into everything: shots of Jameson, a mortgage, your body. When I see
a single peacock feather, I'm not thinking about the whole bird we saw behind wire
at the winery, trailing himself like an empty dress. I'm thinking about the clap fan
you brought to our first date, the way it beseeched the open sky when you
laid it flat on the table, blue-green unfolding between us. When we bed,
I go back there. I bring you with me every time. We meet at the place
where you & all the ways you are stand continuous, wide-eyed,
tongues out, hoping for selection. I walk your rows in every
direction, loop past every face in file, cross the center
& touch every single way your one body has been
new to me. I kiss them all. I never choose.

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David Eileen is a lesbian poet writing letters in the mountains of Virginia. You can sign up for David's e-pistles at www.david-eileen.com, which also links their work published in The Atlantic, Black Warrior Review, Prairie Schooner & more. They would love to talk to you!