My Poem “Holding” Published in Junto Magazine

Holding

You place the heel of my hand
against your brow
so that my fingers spread out
over the curve of your head
settling down into your hair.
I laugh. Why are you doing that,
I ask. To hold the top down,
you answer. It feels good
To hold your head like this –
large and round like a melon,
you say, solid and field warm.
I want to be your head
under my hand, feeling held,
contained, all there. I am
both me, holding, and you, held –
all one, all the same.
Our bodies shift in the dark
and my hand slips away.
You put it back. We cannot
have enough of this oneness –
and, feeling it, we do not sleep.

© Junto Magazine, 2017

Junto Magazine, December 2017

 

Someone Else’s Poem

As published in the fall issue of the online literary journal, Sky Island Journal

Someone Else’s Poem

by Sandra Shaw Homer

 

You are proud

to show me your poem

about a feather-touch

some long ago,

and I am pleased to see

it speaks to me

of you

and love

and what is here.

 

Some other one

inspired your art,

but I know

the feelings are for me

now.  (Who was she?

A solitary feather

on a page.)

 

Perhaps you are ashamed

(I think)

and wish the poem

had been for me.

It is.

A gift of you,

something more of you

to know, touch, smell,

hear, kiss, taste, see.

 

Besides,

had I been she

I would not have flown,

I would certainly have known

to stay, and now –

I would be more than

just a poem.