Lynx Sainte-Marie
Love Movement
Can I move you without moving
shoulders, knuckled and crunched up
bruised from their hospital hands and stares
my lips send you soothing
sacred lovejones without speaking
Softsealedsmiles coz sometimes
it hurts too much
for teeth
Can I hold you without ever lifting my arms
sosore from the weight of the day, my
closed lids greet you with deep creases
side-eye and concern
my *kissteet*ing and *cluck*ing
at those
careless enough to mess with
your sweet heartstrings
forward leans and nodding means
I am present for those words
Can I witness while the sickness keeps me close
nuzzles&breathes me feeds me
smoke and toosweet scented incense
as they pavepoundpast my door
on concrete
I often do this work alone
crumpled between abstracts and bedsheets
my fingers torn from the typingtextingtapping
too broke for walking, too
spent for all this social and
emotional talking
pockets full of disappointed feelings
from my own
Can I love us with this body
I mean they’ve always told me that love
was something to be tended to like gardens
backache working and shift hip sticking
taking turns to turn the soil, toiling hours
before twilight before dawn before dusk
but the grounddusting makes me sneeze and swell
these grinding knees cant
bend to worship
for so long
But I can really care for you and you me
with such real real intentionality
And I imagine that the magically fantastical possibilities of these ways of growing and loving know
all of our capacities
There should be room for all of us
no matter how many cancelled dates and Late last minute messages
and days with heavywaves and remnants of trauma we faced in the
spaces of those who never really wanted us to
Survive in the first place
Can I love you, they ask bravely
and I say yes.