A System of Holding
       

If there's a horse in the mindfield, if there's more than one horse,
                        hold them,
as to not rush them, as to not rush away from the violence
of staying. There are two ways to
                        hold people —
one is by grief. The other is by the physics with which you know
them — a bedfellow's arms swaddled and tugged around you means you have
                        held him
hardly enough. I said bedfellow, not lover, because so far this could be
any century. Hektor did not approve of war. Who is Hektor? He means
                        "to hold" you.
I'll Hektor you, he Hektored down that job, she hektored back
from joy. This is all
                        so old.
Just say it. When you love someone you are consenting to the grief which comes
with loving them. We are objects affected by the light exploration of hands.
I was ravished by a man
                        for a whole
year. I knew him sufficiently and geometrically, his body fit into mine
so much that we were sucking and bordered and building.
                        I held
him, and all his horses, as the TV shook with planes. If there was a day we all
                        wished to hold
each other it would have been that day. Look, people are captivating
in loss, as long as we are not them. As long as the ones we
                        want to hold
are not excruciatingly dead. So many of us were
                        holding each other
the night before, how different things could've been; if that morning
the country was collected by the neck of its throes, and together
we screamed we all just screamed
                                                don't go

Tweet
Copyright © 2015 Kimberly Grey All rights reserved
from jubilat
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission