IT IS FAIR TO SAY THERE ARE SOME LOVERS WHO NEVER LEAVE
though they may leave you,
travel over one hundred
miles, they’ve never
left They always have kinked
hair, leave
behind coils: DNA hooking into your satin
pillow slip a thousand codes hidden
in seven strands
In your dreams they appear as Christ bringing
the lost grazers home
the goats raise hooves press
along your paraspinals express urgency
for play They never tell
you where they’ve been or how long they spent behind
bars Forever
thirty-three or thirty-two they slip in
as though for waffles coffee They’ve been around
the corner all a long
You slept and they continued to rise
They touch
you and you
remember how well chocolate melts
in the bath of Mary
—from Rattle #27, Summer 2007
___________
Natasha Kochicheril Moni: “As with a swim to the opposite side of a lake, I enjoy the healthy risk of exploring greater questions with writing. The lily pad whose hidden cord ensnares my kicking feet, the poem whose center/periphery surprises, literature as action, this is what sustains me as a reader/writer of poetry.” (website)