She thought she was done with all that
but something passes between them
a warm current of it
the thought is sticky
she touches it with her tongue
lets it wash over her  

She steps back into the story
a liquidity moving, all muscle and bristle
waiting to be touched
imaginings low and sweet
  
She is surprised to find
the universe is one rhymed thing
the grass is, the sky is, water is
the song that lifts between two bodies  

She wanted to write everything down
words rooted at the bottom of the lake
but first, before words, a feeling must root
so human and achy it’s worth celebrating  

She runs the reels of him in her head
this wet commingling
still feels the kiss
shivers with its half-life
silver and dizzy as a disco ball
and the room kaleidoscoped into
blankets of stars  

To touch the tender core of things
and tell of it, she will press it here
to the page, a dried flower,
something your body said to mine  

Right now all she wants
is the two of them testing each other—
a settling into themselves
a story about human kindness
a breaking open, a breaking out
the future deepening in the heat
what a pleasure to say,
From here, we can make it up.           

~ A cento, using lines/phrases from the following books:
       All the Fierce Tethers, essays by Lia Purpura
       Blade by Blade, poetry collection by Danusha Laméris
       Entwined, Three Lyric Sequences by Carol Frost
       Hereafter, fiction by Sarah Freligh
       The Hurting Kind, poetry collection by Ada Limón
       Tides, a novel by Sara Freeman