Rime Riche
You need me like ice needs the mountain On which it breeds. Like print needs the page. You move in me like the tongue in a mouth, Like wind in the leaves of summer trees, Gust-fists, hollow except for movement and desire Which is movement. You taste me the way the claws Of a pigeon taste that window-ledge on which it sits, The way water tastes rust in the pipes it shuttles through Beneath a city, unfolding and luminous with industry. Before you were born, the table of elements Was lacking, and I as a noble gas floated Free of attachment. Before you were born, The sun and the moon were paper-thin plates Some machinist at his desk merely clicked into place.
Credit
Copyright © 2010 by Monica Ferrell. Used with permission of the author.
Author
Monica Ferrell

Monica Ferrell is the author of the poetry collection You Darling Thing (Four Way Books, 2018).
Date Published: 2010-01-01
Source URL: https://poets.org/poem/rime-riche