The Night is Long (Three Parts)

Part I

I think of your body
in the night
and hold the open space
beside me.
I yearn to be stitched
into the soft flesh
of a lover, held in arms
like the great expanse
of an open field.

I long for the shared rhythm-
inhale and exhale of your chest,
long golden hair
in my fingers-
dishes and mouth and arched
backs pushing up against the kitchen sink.
I sigh-
all night
long

Part II

I could sleep
in your arms
whereas I was never able before-
Before- always restless,
always waking up in the dark tangled
in sheets, needing to untwine
and extract myself, exasperated-
pleading with the pink morning to slide back
between the crack of curtains

but with you
I could sleep deeply
wrapped in your arms, our bodies solid-
anchored- the center held still
for a moment-
neither living in the past, nor the future.
Fixed in the present- in your arms
all night
long

Part III

I cut off my hair
in grief
for you
to reinvent myself as a bird,
to adorn myself as a bird,
to be free and admired and all the things
I do not want to be-
I cut off my hair
in grief for you

and now I feel it
in the night
and wish I could comb it out-
comb out the long tangled waves
over and over again
with a peacock jeweled comb
in front of grandmother’s mirror
and grow out my hair in the night- long-
long-