for Jim Tipton
I woke up needing proof of love,
proof that we feel it,
proof that we share it, proof
that it matters. And there,
old friend, on the shelf
I found you, surrounded
by dusty covers. I hugged
your pages to my chest.
Is that silly I somehow felt your book
hold me in response?
The way you would hold me—
the kind of embrace that has summer
inside it, and desert honey, and patchouli, and silk.
No one could write a love poem
like you—a poem that made
almost every human feel as if they, too,
had a heart full of orchards made for wandering in,
eyes wide as high mesas
where any lover would want to explore.
Today, I want to read everyone your book.
I want the dark bread of your words to find
every lonely woman, every lonely man,
retelling them they are beautiful. I want
the salt in your words to dissolve on my tongue,
to attune me to thirst. I want to remind
every person what we are capable of—
a love so astonishing it gathers in us
like ripe peaches, sweet,
so impossibly sweet, and yet real—
something we treasure so completely
that all we want to do is give it away.