To Hold You
- To Hold You
You tape three fingers on each hand white but your empty ring finger bleeds when you send the ball back over the net and again at night when you touch me.
Your blood trails a tiny scar on my belly. I take your dry torn finger into my mouth and suck it like a child’s.
In Cuba we would find mangoes big as melons, avocados, your father’s grave. Will you cry, the palm branch a great wing coming down over you? Will you come home again with me?
Yes, you say. Once again you stand sobbing in the shower and I step into the mist to hold you.
Kathleen Kirk teaches literature and writing at DePaul University in Chicago. Her poems and stories have appeared in Puerto del Sol, Mangrove, and Spoon River Poetry Review. She is an associate editor of Rhino, a literary annual.
