Hiatus

I give up touch. My hand holds stems 
         of air, while I remember 
         the long hair I wore 
         as a not-girl child. 

 I give up touch to feel 
         safe in a body. How could I be 
         the girl they saw the man 

         I am? Somewhere beyond language 

we are touching 
only the long hair   

of the cool stream 
meeting the lake   

and I remember   

sky when I look down 
into its surface, my face 
only veil, and below, rocks fish   

my shadow. My pulse. Sun and moon 
         set and rise. Everywhere branches 
         tangle. Mist from the lake 

         catches in my beard. Once a butterfly 
         rested there. The moment I said I’m not 

         a flower, she lifted away 
         and I was all bloom.  

What is our essence and who 
         drinks its nectar? A small god 

         surely lives in my throat 
         a kind of temple. I have fed him flesh 

         from the forest floor 
         and he cradles my eyes 

         and he grows me up 
         into the green 
         of trees. I know 

         he’s gold though he’s only ever been 
         visible in dreams. He appears 

         as my mother, childhood 
         pets, a first love, a ghost 

         story whispered over flashlight 
         in a backyard tent, neighbors 
         whose names I’ve lost.   

Here is where I try to hear him.   

Here is where I study how to love him

         bring him elderberry, oxeye 
         daisy, row of purple 
         foxglove, leopard 
         slug, mock orange, morning 
         glory, mountain lettuce.   

It rains here often. I learn to be water 
in a garden. A handsome solitude is not the same   

as loneliness. It’s here I call my little gold god   

beloved, friend. 

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“I wrote ‘Hiatus’ as I was coming out of a long illness, throughout which I was largely unable to write anything more than dreams. At first, my silence was a depressed resignation. Once I began to think of it as necessary to healing, I began to hear the poem.”
—Ely Shipley