two poems about her

jess' vignette

i lay between her breasts after sex with

her hands running up and

down my back

like the falls of a creek,

listening to the music

of her heartbeat. as i

fall on my side

against her mattress she

burrows her chin into my waist.

every slope of my body is face-shaped

and a place to lay her head.

forty minutes later i'm lounging

in my lace underwear and her t-shirt.

her mouth is my favorite language, her lip is

my favorite word. every escaping

breath is a way to ask her to comb my hair

in the shower,

every sound to trace her neck with my fingertips

with the virtue of loving her, of cherry blossoms growing

and blooming by the library, by our dorms, in my lungs.

our limbs intertwine like oak roots and pine and

here, we are rooting.

when i lie in the grass i feel a quiet rumbling

and know that we all beat for her –

and who could blame us –

the Earth meets me and slowly trembles,

seizes, releases.

we kiss in the grass while her fingers

roll over my stretch marks

that only know how to speak for her,

that only whisper her name.

I want, I want

Your mouth is my rock, your tongue is a river.

Flow into me.

I want to hear about your day. I want to hear about the two people

who left your job. and how you have extra hours,

I want to take you on a date. I want to go stargazing tonight, I want to kiss you

under blanket of sky over blanket of polyester, I want you.

I want to count your eyelashes gold and bronze and red.

I want, I want.

I want to lie with you, want to feel your breath slow. Want to slow my breath.

I want to count in twenty fours, want to see the world in terms of nearby

woodchip, want to wrap it in wire. Want to fall asleep waiting for you

to join me in bed, wake up with your warmth and steadiness.

Want to take my meds, make you smile, make me smile.

Want to listen to Noah Kahan, and Christian Lee Hutson, Want to drive to the Hudson. Want to have cats,

behind my eyes they have eyes

of biblically accurate angels.

Lavinia, Clove, Destroyer. Your eyes, your eyes. Green grass meadows

sunflowers. Sunflowers daisies succulents forsythia yellow moon and cherries cherries cherries.

I love you. Want you, I am greedy, you let me be.

Burrow into me. I am home. 

Ronit May is a twenty year old social work student at Ramapo College. Their work has been published in The Closed Eye Open’s Issue XI, The Blood Pudding, StreetLit, and more. They are working on their second chapbook, A Sentence Is A Garden You Stumble Through (Hoping To Pick A Word So Beautiful).