A Box of Paperclips
       

In some ways it's simple. Here
is the weight of a hand, a box
of paperclips laid on a chest. The wet
heat of Mississippi, a longing
of the bones to be free
of the skin, the way they lean
from the body
into the frenetic air.

Or the hollowed skull
of an acorn squash. A postcard
on a refrigerator door.
The haloes of street lamps
and that unformed object
at the end of the trail.

Love, what does this turn
us into? What does distance do
except open like a split geode
to reveal itself — blue and cracked
and impossibly hard.

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Copyright © 2011 Erin Elizabeth Smith All rights reserved
from The Naming of Strays
Gold Wake Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission