by Faulkner Fox

They're all around people
I could make love to,
pierced woman at the cash register
wearing a ripped-up shirt, beautiful breasts hanging out.
Your hair is yellow, my two-year-old tells her,
yellow with black under.
Or my old man friend
who smokes, hacks, walks slowly
from coffee shop to home.
His eyes pierce, he laughs mercilessly,
then defends his privacy like
a country.
I'm willing to hustle mine,
barter it for skin.

But who will let me in,
let me take their body in my hands?
Men who take limos to topless bars
near the airport? Maybe
not even them, maybe
they're trying to get away from real women.
I am nothing if not real
loose breasts, two births of stretch
marks on my stomach, sad pucker of skin
over my left eye.

What do I want?
What is it fair to ask for?
My face in the hair of a stranger?
My hand in the hand of an old woman
as we sing the Lord's Prayer?
My mouth on my child's sweet neck?

I want it all. Myself, others,
communion.