Talismans

When my mother

left me home

with a babysitter, she used to

give me the cloth--

the piece of cotton

she kept by her bedside

to rub between her fingers

in hours of anxiety.

It smelled of her (roses

and patchouli, kissed by silver).

The T-shirt you left me

(soft cotton, burnt orange)

hasn’t been washed.

I leave it folded on my bedside

so every night I smell

the faint pine man sweat green skunk

hinting of your presence.

Nightmare nights, I used to waken

and reach for the comfort

of my mother’s room, where I could

hear the television

running, even when the bed was empty.

Those voices

a source of comfort.

Now, nighttimes,

I reach for you in darkness, stretching

my limbs from the silent womb

of solitude, groping like a starfish, missing

the silent curve of your body, slipped

so perfectly against me, inside of me

overwhelming me. Pulling myself

towards you, inside of you,

wrapping around you,

stacking us

within one another

till we no longer distinguish

our seamless skin, a

gleaming surface. Our

selves no longer

fragments. Take me in.

This missing is not a new sensation.

I’m used to holding

conversations with silence.

I write poems in half-light

(laptop glowing in my college dorm room)

and send them to you in

California.

I get up, take a shower, scrub my torso.

I am washing you, sanitizing

my remnants. I am renouncing.