Offering

Here is a poem by Sonnet L'Abbe, an old friend of mine from my residence days. Her first volume of poetry A Strange Relief was published by McClelland and Stewart two years ago, and I was fortunate enough to see her read from it. Hopefully she won't sue me for including a piece from it here, partially in the hope it brings her work to a few more eyes, partially just because I like this piece.

Offering

The vocabulary of desire
is incomplete, a word is missing.

My tongue searches
for your body in language
and finds you in every word.

I thought this was a small thing, a stone
in the plam I could offer you,
my body in darkness a simple gift
casual as a pebble.
As if touching were easier than speaking,
as if this poem did not prove you
inside me already, as if asking
meant I still had the power to invite.

But you make me aware of breathing,
of the awesome fact
that each particle of air
has been taken at least once
into every lung.
Suddenly, I have no boundaries
and to kiss you seems to drink up the sky,
slip it from my tongue into your mouth.

Our bodies just our hearts' clothing
and I came to you so shabbily dressed.
Maybe I thought that for one night
I could wear your beauty through closeness
and for a few hours believe myself
splendidly arrayed.

But you know all the lyrics
to rejection.
My body, your exquisite voice's
shattered glass.

I'm not sure how I feel about the last stanza, which seems to me a tad melodramatic, but I shouldn't say much as my own writing of late has suffered from the same quality. But it's rather good, especially for a first volume. I wish my own writing weren't so stalled; the academy does horrible things to one's creative impulses.

Post-script to Sonnet, if she actually sees this here: Yes, I remember the 'good' old days, and I will of course remain discreet. :-)