Your head
Your head
like a promise
between my skin
wrapped breathy
and scraggle-hair-scratchy
Your heart like a motion - rippled, tidal
and elegant
Your voice like a resonance - coupled, ancient
and no-longer foreign
And this smell I can never stop smelling
The hunger of your bones for my flesh
The clavicle of my home
where your chest beats
The beat of the drum
hollowing this place
on your breastbone - firm, open,
holding -
All holding, all held
Your head
held - between my hands
or in them
Your head
held - above my heart or within
Great feats accomplished mid-air on a flight home to Philadelphia
You bubble-eye up at me, faucets of hands pouring out at me marshmallow skin and brandied hair swaying without reason in no direction at all
something shouts from inside your tin-pipe of a crackle-voice -- the “Mom!” escaping into the plane-recycled-air ;; popping hot like a cascade of visible letters
I try to pull my sing-song voice out of the front-most of my quiet-box mouth machine // you rub your eyes with grandeur, I press a tiny finger to my lips, make the everlasting “sh” sound
But the air is filled with the tingle of your voice now; the light through the tiny plane windows reverberates with the magnet tenor of your high-cathedral-ceilinged voice // To me it sounds like candy ;; but still I laugh and “sh” a gentle stream of fingers pressed against lips and lilypad eyes glaring a soft “no”
You care only for the joy of sound ;; the exuberant declaration: “Mom! I did it” (you’ve done it, the perfect accomplishment of play; the greatest accomplishment on the plane) You bubble-eye your little boy blues at me I stroke your plum jam cheek; I secretly thrill myself in the sweet carol of your voice I cannot stand to quiet your celebratory hum, but here yet again I press my lips to the tinctures of your ears for a gentle reminder (I’ve done it; the perfect accomplishment) and still, after you have quieted and the anxiety of the passengers on the plane has released the jinglelove of your little voice tingles inside of my brain like the most elegant bird still in flight; a great gift still singing
Lauren Suchenski has a difficult relationship with punctuation and currently lives in Yardley, PA. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize as well as twice for The Best of the Net and her chapbook “Full of Ears and Eyes Am I” is available from Finishing Line Press. You can find more of her writing on Instagram @lauren_suchenski or on Twitter @laurensuchenski.