Putting together a manuscript is one of my personal joys of being a poet. I love learning how poems talk to each other, and how to arrange them in a way that helps them talk to each other. I began this process again with a small chapbook of love poems.
I recently finished an online, generative workshop with Sophia Dahlin, The Possibility of Love. I joined this class because the thought of writing love poetry in itself was already daunting. I weigh my interest in poetry in how much it moves me emotionally. I describe this to my partner as the clutching of my chest, or the gasp, or my hands flying to my mouth. This is especially hard to accomplish with love poetry. So, I thought, why not? How do we learn if not to challenge ourselves?
Each of the poems in this budding manuscript was written in response to a prompt provided by Sophia, some harder than others, but all harder than any other poem I’ve tried to write before.
This first poem, “wrap my legs around your hips,” was an attempt towards the sensual, the erotic. How better for me, as someone who grew up with layers of shame solely on the basis of being born a daughter and Catholic, than to reclaim my joy and wants in intimacy?
And so, this is love, or rather, just one of my many thoughts on love.
wrap my legs around your hips,
and teach me how to beg, reach and
stretch my tongue until my voice
coats this room into waves,
wrap us in universal dust and dwarf
event horizon of precious touch,
breath meeting breath desperate
exhale of atoms entwining and
heaving until the release, until you
seal the sweat and skin, until you
spill black and purple overflow into
brilliant sinewed stars, please 
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