By Charlie M. Case (with a borrowed line from Nicky Beer)
Winner of The Edward R. and Frances Schreiber Collins Literary Awards (Poetry)
This is not something anyone can eke out of me,
so stop asking. Put your hands on me
and don’t misinterpret—let me touch you only
so we don’t perish. Humans are social creatures.
Infants will die if left unheld, and so we all crave it—
so do I. But don’t mistake me.
I need a bar where you can’t buy anyone a drink.
I need a third friend for the canoe’s middle seat,
a book club of antisocial-awkwards,
a year without February.
I need all the speech and sentiment gone.
Yellow rose arrangements, upside-down dried,
hang above my door like a horseshoe: a ward.
Come in and comprehend it—that it is survival,
this squeezed hand, full-body embrace and bent ear.
Name it all it is: attention, hunger, desireless.
This is as close as I’m going to get to love.
So stop asking. Put your hands on me
and don’t misinterpret—I can’t, and anyway
I don’t want to. Name me for all I am:
human, social, hungry. I’m Februaryless.
Some summer bonfire and its many gathered,
light exchanging hands. Let me touch you simply
so we both live.
