Poetry Thursday ... better late than never

Collude
 ~Bhanu Kapil

with the anemone zero.

Drink 12 oz. of coffee in Longmont.

Are you parched?

Is your name Pinky?

What color is the skin of your inner arm, creamy?

Valentine City rebate: a box of chocolates from Safeway.

Yours, yours, yours.

In its entirety.

Don’t collude with your inability to give or receive love.

Collude, instead, with the lining of the universe.

Descent, rotation, silk water, brief periods of intense sunlight striated with rose pink glitter.

The glitter can only get us.

So far.

Here we are at the part with the asphalt, airstream Tupperware, veins, some nice light stretching.

Call me.

This is a poem for a beloved.

Who never arrived.

Copyright © 2019 Bhanu Kapil. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 17, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.