by Monique Tschofen

Just as, long before the skies open to deluge and flood,
worms stretch, and soil dreams its dirty dreams,
so too, when I think of the soft heat that runs through this blood,
our afternoon skin in rivulets and streams,

do I yearn for more gentle drownings. How
else to reach for the movement of things? You greet
me with the rain in your hair, and smoke, and dust, now
smiling with your sour cherry lips, your feet

laced up in running shoes. I want to raise your hands
to my mouth so I feel the steady pulse of wrists on
my tongue. The life in you makes me glad, as a garden stands
glad among showers, as water rejoices its tumble into lawn.

I want to feed your lemongrass thoughts,
make them stretch tall towards mine; when apart,
I want to feel our green embrace trace intricate knots,
to curl away my parsley fears. To grow well is an art

that depends upon change. We rise, turn, slip, and sink,
but even our falls bring us closer to the germ and the seed
of a muddy joy beneath which, I would like to think,
breathes the patience of stone. To drown you in, my urgent need.

Monique Tschofen teaches English and Communications and Cultural Studies at Ryerson University. Her poetry has recently been published in CV2, The Fiddlehead, the Whitewall Review, and the New Delta Review. She lives in Toronto.