Tips: A poem of loss and connection
Do your lips crack more in the winter or summer?
Connection
Connection is something that all humanity craves; all humans need it. So why is it so elusive? And why is it that so many of us feel the exact opposite? In my attempt to make you feel the ache of isolation, I think all I did was portray the actual need to feel that connection with something. Do I at least succeed? You tell me.
Tips
Lotionless hands run rough
in the onslaught of the sun.
It's truth to know the one
trick to the cracks and dips
of the fingers is the water.
As it passes through pealed lips
and yet burns, no quenching
in these tips.
And yet still I seek it;
the thirst and the end to it.
the water is endless in its
tricks.
The sun feigns relief
only to grieve times ten
when you're sure
there'll be no more.
The wind--a breeze?
None of these fit.
It's a caress that
stings and pelts
the tips.
It's the howling that
continues.
Suns and moons
without answer.
I think you're my Sun.
The de-quencher of my lips,
the cracker of my fingertips.
I think you're my wind--my stinging
breeze with limitless lungs' capacity--
and you repeat me. You repeat me.
I am my own moon,
my own source of
renewal.
But without your water,
my lips' pealed skin
and my tips' cracked dips
would never cease this kiss.
© 2012 Jennifer Kessner