In Lieu of Questions

[wpaudio url=”/audio/8_1/Gouirand.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

Among the lessons you ask, this one
about the tongue-what I hunger for

is not the only territory. The body exists,
surrounded on all sides by currents

of nothing, this suspension we call late.
Over the flame, you break chocolate

from the bar. No words, just the sound
of the gas, my hands separating oranges

into their interior forms. It’s January,
it’s February, it’s a place gotten to slowly,

and between our two houses, this is
all we have tonight. Sometimes in California

whole things drop, go rolling for lower
ground, their sheer numbers a kind

of poverty. I want you to let me strip you
of name and skin like this, until want

and need cannot be separated.