Lois Marie Harrod, New Jersey, USA
Those long fingers—
I wanted hands
like yours,
joints with delicate knobs
someone could pull gently,
open my drawer of rocks.
I wanted to live through my fingers,
filigree fog,
hands skeletal and slippery,
see through tips
the wet and dry ridges of snails,
suck salamanders,
a hand that might laugh shyly
and cover my eyes
loosely—so that I could feel through.
I am here
in the sand waiting
to touch you.
Lois Marie Harrod’s 17th collection Woman was published by Blue Lyra in February 2020. Her Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks, her chapbook And She Took the Heart appeared in January 2016, Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press) and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013. A Dodge poet, she is published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3. She teaches at the Evergreen Forum in Princeton and at The College of New Jersey. Links to her online work can be found here: www.loismarieharrod.org