Nocturne
        after Ruth Awad

Like a violin waiting the bow,
when I thirst, I dream

of bobcats,
dream of bluegills, alligators,
whales, creeks, hot air

balloons, fatherless
animals, windless
coasts, abandoned homes.

I push into the unabashed
territories of longing—violets,
mornings, meadows, tongues—

and the world is delicious again.
We have no idea how to live here.

To forget how you tasted those leggy afternoons
when our bodies spilled
like wine across the floor,

is to admit a hawk into the house.
Is to wring a rag of water.

When I'm in the thicket
with my smaller hungers,
I don't need to know every cave

and what it stores, cool
and damp, for you. I don't need
to know how many nests

are lined with your hair.
There's nothing tame about twilight,
this old song shaking the sweetgum leaves—

when I thirst I dream
like a violin waiting the bow.

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Copyright © 2022 Amie Whittemore All rights reserved
from Birmingham Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission