Jed Myers
Seclusion Math
Let us count, but not number,
the embraces before.
Count the imagined
kisses, let them speed through the clouds to reach
just those lips, cheeks, brows
they were sent for.
Let us count now,
with no accounting, the moments our arms will fly
round one another in August,
though we can’t
be sure.
And count, without tally,
those quick subtle starts of the hand
toward love’s faces across towns, ranges,
even across the edge of breath.
Let’s count each
touch between hearts, whether or not
we can sense it, every spark or harmonic,
flicker, hint in the air,
like a small bird’s dark
flash across vision’s border. Count all our care.
Jed Myers is the author of Watching the Perseids (Sacramento Poetry Center, 2014), The Marriage of Space and Time (MoonPath Press, 2019), and four chapbooks. Recent poems appear in Rattle, Poetry Northwest, The American Journal of Poetry, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Southern Poetry Review, Ruminate, and other journals. His work appears in the anthologies For Love of Orcas (Wandering Aengus Press, 2019), edited by and Take a Stand: Art Against Hate (Raven Chronicles Press, 2020), edited by Myers is poetry editor of the journal Bracken, and lives in Seattle.
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