ON THE DEATH OF A BLACK BULL

I am a terrible thing to want. The earth spins and

I have peeled all the fruit; I have made all the coffee. I want

to hold love in    the palm of my hand like a small

              it feels like putting your hand in a sunspot and saying 

                                                                                                         yes

I’m holding it, I can feel its weight.                

                        Really you’re saying

               this sun, which is for everyone, is now something I am

                                       caring for. I will be responsible. Don’t come any closer –

                      I am an awful thing to love! It is evening.

The coffee is cooling on the windowsill. 

                                                                                                     I fear I will be careless

with you, always. 

                                                                                                The sun is setting;

                                                                        the bird has left

                                                 my hand.

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Grace Sleeman is a poet living and working in Portland, Maine. For her, much of the contemporary poetic experience is about finding the sensuality in the sacred, finding the sacred in the mundane and finding worms after a thunderstorm. Her work has appeared in Koukash Review, Slipstream Press and Noise Magazine, among other publications. You can find her online at @myrmiidons.