Prelude

Yeomin Kim

That you, who have touched the body

of God and found it

wanting, should touch me, and not withdraw

your hand. It is a resemblance of sorts,

to those glasses of milk

for which I would ask my mother each night,

but only once we were both of us

tucked in bed. It is like that. Her climbing in

under the sheets despite, waiting for my asking

for a glass of milk, please.

And the rough threads

of grandfather’s back,

me upon him sleeping, waking

from streetlamp to dark then

to streetlamp again. My face folded

against the wool, as

it folds against yours now,

along that familiar crescent crease of skin. Surely,

such similitudes must lie according to a higher form.

The prelude to a certain firmament of heaven,

your hands, the milk, the wool.

When we see their tiny hands

Madeline Simms

for Robin Becker

Baby, your belly like a jukebox.

The leg of a fawn is a twig

you could snap. You work

mechanically at an office cubicle

in a building fueled by coffee

and clicks of a keyboard and marvel

at the future. Ultrasounds:

trailers for films you

have yet to see, a character

evolving, each black and white

exposure. You want to cry

out a foreign fear.

The mystery of two

makes sense to a bed.

The estranged phenomenon

of beginning grabs your finger,

like a vine.