Assent

In which Jennifer writes a poem.

Assent
                                      after Charles Simic

where you see eye sockets
see emptiness see fullness
see sparseness see blue

where you see mouth
feel emptiness feel fullness
feel hunger feel ache

where you see acres of hair
roll across the bed,
see waves see wheat see fingers see hands

but when your hands touch
take hold wish hunger ache

roll sparseness between palms
roll the air between stars
roll it all up a dense ball of sky
			offer it all

up from your two hands 
open fortune fullness desire ripe 

how you feel
tell me.


—Jennifer Woodworth, ca. 2022.  Many thanks to Blue as an Orange magazine, where this poem was first published in the summer of 2022.