For the man who doesn’t need me,
I am a million wanting hands growing from stones
too hard
and impenetrable to sprout
anything at all.
Against me, an ocean.
–cold.
–grey.
It is a mirror
unconcerned with the self I want to see
–always
I am facing the wrong direction
and so is he.
Sometimes,
I am an open mouth
wrinkling for lack of moisture and he is the whale’s tail
fanning warm, salty air against my tongue.
It is then, that wet and dry are the same to a wanting body
and survival
is in a difference I refuse to know.
If only I could sink beneath the water
where his eyes are.
Would I know him then?
-Angie Hoover
Art: Goodbye by Michael Harford
