cinnamon girl

Tonight there must be people who are getting what they want.

I let my oars fall into the water.

Good for them. Good for them, getting what they want.

The night is so still that I forget to breathe.

The dark air is getting colder. Birds are leaving.

Tonight there are people getting just what they need.

The air is so still that it seems to stop my heart.

I remember you in a black and white photograph

taken this time of some year. You were leaning against a half-shed tree,

standing in the leaves the tree had lost.

When I finally exhale it takes forever to be over.

Tonight, there are people who are so happy,

that they have forgotten to worry about tomorrow.

Somewhere, people have entirely forgotten about tomorrow.

My hand trails in the water.

I should not have dropped those oars. Such a soft wind.

by A.R. Ammons

sleep is the first house

(excerpt) Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

Ferdinand Hodler, "Night" (detail) // Pierre Jahan, Nu Plain-chant (1947)

(excerpt) Eileen Myles, "Universal Cycle", The Importance of Being Iceland

Sara Stout, "Paris Bed" // Alex Venezia

(excerpt) Adrienne Rich, Twenty One Love Poems ("Poem XII")

Mark English, "Couple" (1933) // Kenney Mencher, "A Married Couple"

(excerpt) Walt Whitman, "When I Heard at the Close of Day"

Łukasz Stokłosa, "Untitled" (2014) // Matt Lambert for Dazed