I am falling in love with my hands, matching friends,
how they touch every part of me that the night does not reach,
how they build, and hold, and break, and write,
how they soothe, and stir and intertwine like vines of the most exotic wine,
how every time I have turned them into fists thrown through windows and doors,
they have returned to me, open and forgiving,
the ends of wings.
I am falling in love with my eyes,
dark chocolate orbs that meet the sky and shine,
how they can see through masks, right to the heart of a person,
how they are the beginning of every poem, discerning tools of observation,
how they see the micro in the macro, how they make beauty grow,
how they drink in the dance of life,
how they inspect, understand, grasp, discover,
how the eyes are not only the beholders of lovers,
windows into my spirit, with white silk curtains all the way open,
how they see, what they see, who they see
with the vision of Soul recognizing Soul.
I am falling in love with my breasts,
how they stand like humble mountains on a terrain of many hills,
how they ache and swell with the pulsing of want,
how they long to nourish a life born from this body,
how they fall, how they rise, how they softly spill into position,
mammary, glands of mamma,
how they will glow like full moons, clear beams only waxing light.
I am falling in love with my feet,
for every step they have tread in this life
and the lives that led me here,
the journey of the Soul that started with one meek step
into the valley of shadows, one more step,
and another, through and though and through,
how the valleys have become this illuminating summit
under the soles of two persistent travelers.
I am falling in love with my thighs,
thick creatures that rub against each other for warmth,
thunderous guards standing at the door of my lighted temple,
body hungry trees that offer skin-pillow heat,
how they are not defeated in their grand design, but aligned with
planets that have yet to be seen with the naked eye.
I am falling in love with my skin,
olive-brown stretch-marked
highways of decadence and loss,
of opening and close,
come close, closer,
and see how you make my colors rise,
how I can quickly become a reddened dawn
ascending over the horizon of you…
falling in love with me.
Kai Coggin is a poet and author living on the side of a small mountain in Hot Springs, AR. She holds a degree in Poetry and Creative Writing from Texas A & M University. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Split This Rock, Yellow Chair Review, ANIMA, Lavender Review, Elephant Journal, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Cliterature, ITWOW, [empath] quarterly, Catching Calliope, and other journals, as well as anthologized in several collections.
Kai is the author of PERISCOPE HEART (Swimming with Elephants Publications, 2014). Her poetry has recently been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Bettering American Poetry. She is also a Teaching Artist with the Arkansas Arts Council, specializing in bringing poetry and creative writing to youth.
