Folklore I.
Claudia F. Savage

Right in the middle.
If there could be a middle.
While you are in the middle of me.
 
Right.                               This is just how we started
 
you finding the true length
of those fingers, and, good God,
good lord, it feels just as wild, just
as hallelujah, as it was then.
 
In fact.                              It might be better
might be, if possible, better,
because, we almost missed this.
 
Your tangy tongue.        Thought I wouldn’t
 
want it Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Tuesday, every day, this is just what I,
just what we, need before
dinner, bed, eat every moment
with you.
 
I would live.                   Near the river’s mouth
 
frozen waterfalls of mud, cruel wind,
no way down the highway in winter, you said,
closed down, shut out, sequestered,
and I told you, I once lived at the mountain’s whim,
I can handle an hour away,
but I can’t, you said, I can’t.
 
In spring.                        When flowers dilate

their petals, it is just an extension
of every other season, just a
different shade of green, gooey,
moldy, budding, can’t believe
it never stops, never stops, there is no
winter, but really, don’t you just
love the rain, the way mist clings to the evergreens
like a cloak of love, some would say
it is easier, the wall of water sideways,
the gray linger, but snow, remember to
miss me, now that I’m gone.
 
In the East.                     My sister trembles

under a thousand blankets, a friend gifts me
an autumnal crocus, already it flowers though
it is only February, for a year it can feed itself,
eat its own insides, for a year sustained, I was
like that once, not needing soil, tending, for a year
no one noticed if I passed out from fever,
if I didn’t show up, get up, straight up I'll
take it once more, no one cares.
 
Now.                                 I have your

beard of fox fur, gray, red, silver, blond,
your chin blended prairie, I’m smitten, an overfed
kitten in your bed, in one story, you are ice
and I am snow, in this one, we are both molten,
careening into clouds, both unstoppable, even
in this dark bed, through the rain, burning.

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