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Chastity

Shadow fountain, she spoke
of sensation as a gourmet might—
on tiny spoons saved for artifacts.
I'm a weary pot, I'm saying, not
immovable, but feeling immovable. The boys
are a safe distance at bay—at jealous
peripheries they joke like brambles
made of air. What are we left,
weird creatures—us can't-be-bodies,
on our own. A little slap pipes up
from beneath an Argyle pond;
lovers emitting plasma, pairwise
in the grass become alone from other
coupled things. Impatience stares
hard between the train cars where
we wait to cross. And for what—
hot pebbles? A little tomb? The sun,
for which we're grateful becomes
by afternoon a bit too much.
There's nothing to be done
for a net falling through water
or an ultraviolet ray in a wind. Slowly,
the stone bakes the butterfly's feet,
and slowly I'm the stone.









Alec Hershman lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has received awards from the KHN Center for the Arts; the Jentel Foundation; The St. Louis Regional Arts Commission; and the Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, and Natural Design. You can find links to more of his poems at alechershmanpoetry.com.

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