Today’s prompt: “a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully.” (http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-nine-5/)
Memory of Feeling
I remember the feeling.
I remember:
the sharp inhale,
the racing pulse,
the nervous sweat,
the stuttering tongue,
the locked muscles,
pounding pulse in my ears.
I suppose you would call it fear.
Or awe. Or desire.
All this, muddled and inextricable,
blended to create something
extraordinary.
The physiology of ecstasy.
I have an image, clear and certain,
standing before you,
naked for the first time,
my first sight of you:
breast,
hip,
the hollow of your collar bone,
ragged fingernails bitten to the quick,
legs open,
wanting.
How we wanted!
My eyes darting here,
then there,
nervously sliding across the landscape
of your body,
not knowing where to rest.
This moment, even more
than what came after
(rapture! wonder!)
etched the experience into
my bones.
I picture you now,
again, and I remember
the feeling.
John the Librarian 