the lakebody: a lover’s body fetal curled against itself, molded
by digging bleeding glacial fingers before the before
the lakebody tosses in an ancient fitful sleep, a lullaby of thousand year slowness
ageless sweetness, wave lapping restfulness, bed of soft eroded stones
the lakebody, shining:
a lover basking, a lover’s beyondness, a lover’s thighs and hips, a lover’s plumpness against their lover, a lover’s skin sun-warm and yielding, a lover’s promise to love
the lakebody holds, how it holds:
shipwrecks, sturgeon and trout, sunken waxy sailors, waterbirds and their ballet-slipper feet, the insistent looking of lighthouses, screams of waterbirds, lighthouses at the end of piers, zebra mussels, beer bottles too sharp to be sea glass, driftwood and wood drifting, sea glass in every frosted color, every color —
the lakebody and its broad horizon back, sunset shoulders
how it can hold as human arms stretch meagerly wide, never wide enough
to hold the reaching capped waves, their own human prayerful gratitude
the lakebody, a body unbelonging to language,
to time, to touch, sweet little human touch
—
Julia Cilano (any pronouns) is a first-year in the Northeast Ohio MFA program, where she studies poetry. Julia graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the spring of 2023, where she majored in French, English, and Critical Sexuality and Queer Studies. Julia’s poetry has been published by Moss Puppy Magazine and will soon be published in CrayfishMag. Julia is sprung from the Great Lakes region.
