Airea D. Matthews

I imagine, by now, you’re no longer wondering,

though I never answered your question:

what do you think the author intended?

One of those rhetorical numbers; the breath

provided response. Surely you’re somewhere

deep in thought. Finger to mouth or thumbing

some mug’s brim while thousands of fingerprint

parabola hold me in the grooves long after

you’d glided your index across my raised 

mast’s braille. Scissoring, your good hand 

high, the other dropped down. I agreed

with you—100 words/minute.

But, then, I stopped count at 10.

So little language is lost 

in heightened dimension,

in the small space of asking:

May I read the news to you, my love?

Then crisply unfolding my body 

across your lap.