If gravity is the moon’s reaching for the ocean,
what is the word for one hand seeking another?
Language lumps like ash in my mouth. I am
forever seeking an object that can explain this.
Does option exist for feeling? What power, the
ability to direct one’s reactions. I think this is called
poise. I prefer to swallow my losses, cultivating
sadness in that part of me that is dark and unseen.
I think of your mouth as an instrument of craving,
but instrument implies action, action implies choice.
My body is a series of appetites without answer.
I like to substitute the word desire for hunger,
a way to transform a need into an inclination,
an attempt at regaining some form of control.
Alexandra Smyth is a graduate of the City College of New York MFA Creative Writing Program. She was a finalist for the 2015 Gabriela Mistral Poetry Prize, as well as a 2014 recipient of the Poets and Writers Amy Award, and the 2013 recipient of the Jerome Lowell Dejur Prize in Poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Found Poetry Review and Glass: A Journal of Poetry, among others.