All We Have
Sometimes we reach for each other
with the red, silken fervency
of poppies.
How well we know this sweet,
short-lived urgency.
Like petals, we spend, blanch
and fall into that scarlet slip-
slide – from stigma, style, ovary
and peduncle, from embrace to release,
as morning dew beads and shimmers
swiftly down our aqueous trails
that teach us the anther-crazed
gospel: Is is all we have.
RICHARD LEVINE, a retired NYC teacher, is the author of Now in Contest, Selected Poems, Contiguous States, and five chapbooks. Read more.