Planes

This was written a few weeks ago, while I was "listening" in one of my classes. I'm trying transition back into writing, particularly poetry.

*****

 

Your clothing falls from your shoulders,

too big, standing away

from your body, stiffened by hanging

too long in a closet,

but I don’t see

the planes of cloth

encasing your torso

but the hollowness underneath,

the shadow tucked inside your collar,

the curve of your spine, your ribs

expanding inside the soft coolness

like when we were young,

and would make tents in the lilacs

with crisp, old sheets

and lie on the grass

together, like a secret

world all our own,

but now you’re encased, so far

away, inside cotton broadcloth—

a door I can’t open, a fence

I could not jump—

and you feel like a wall

I’ve pressed myself against.