Samuel Dickerson

Distance, Closing Distance

I think of places as people, of home 
as her. Not what I can have, what I can love 

and be a part of. I’m thinking about her     jeans, the word 
undo. She walks and I watch her hips and understand 

I don’t understand       shape. Desire is carnival games  
and longing is summer night rain. Her room is blue  

with late evening. Her hair is blonde and holding me  
the same sweet way it frames her       face. I think uncover 

as I tuck the gentle strands behind her ear. We unwrap 
each other, down to the skin       and the lace 

and I can see her, clear as midnight       in June, her soft  
curves under the blanket         of a shadow, as smooth  

and heart-wrenching as the place the horizon nestles  
on the indigo. I trace her         silhouette with the heat  

of my hands. I don’t know I’m not ready       to want more.

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Samuel Dickerson is a Best of the Net Award Nominee and has poems published or forthcoming in swamp pink and Harpur Palate. He is currently in the MFA Program at the University of Northern Michigan and he served as poetry editor for The Scarab.