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Today's poem is by Rae Gouirand

Love
       

This is the crack: I don't have to ask
I might find need

and be it.Mean: my teeth
might break a violet mark. A halo.

I was taught to thread a needle
first suck and bite the silk

so it will pass the smallest
gap—that intimate

matter massaged by lip
to persuade the eye

it might. I squint.
What is it I gnaw, what is

that trail that travels itself
the nape where I realized what I was

the cushions I bit while lashes
straightened the white place.

Bite because the canopy. Because
the take raises the comb.

The hard part of me was taught to marry
to take others off the bone. Clearly

I mean: a life
fixed. The call making that

part of my throat
you I split to make my way out.



Copyright © 2015 Rae Gouirand All rights reserved
from Fourteen Hills
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission

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