by Beth Bachmann
We love a thing we cannot know.
This is what stops us from touching
but also what cannot stop us from touching
a body even after it’s cold.
Some call it continuous, this mystery –
I keep coming back to the grass that grows
near dumpsters, that startles my leg after dusk.
In the black bag is the fruit I bought and did not eat,
so soft against the knife it wasn’t worth saving,
the way it did not part to speak or run.
–Excerpted from Temper by Beth Bachmann Copyright (c) 2009. Excerpted by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press.
*Photo courtesy dougfelt.