Open Openly
Bless Tuesday, blessed Monday.
Bless the word week, its seven
small days trail with y.
Bless the men whose words
I was too young to hear.
A whisper loves a canal.
Bless my laugh, lent by grief,
I have so little left to borrow.
But my hair, it grows—
if hair be gold, cut mine so
I might rid my beloved
of his student loans. Bless
thieves, universities, those
hands caress what’s not theirs.
Bless thinking it was yours.
Here are hands, blessed one.
Bless them holding the door.
Bless each crier on the F
train before and after me
as they blush, as they transfer
into tunnels for the red line.
Oh bless, bless wildly, what
remains to be done. Bless
the one who told me so,
the ones who didn’t.
Even weak breaths bless.
Bless weakness, fragile fortress,
my friend’s body absent
of soundness. Bless the sound
of someone reliable answering
your call, saying If you’re going
through hell, Hello. Hello.
Bless being able to respond
when a loved one asks
Can you tell I’m miserable?
I can hear it, elastic sadness,
distinctive as a summons:
appear and pronounce. Bless
you, my beloved, coming,
leaving, staying a while,
the tone of being unharmed,
deep as a sound sleep. Bless
the channel between us, your
tiny boat, your body in a body
of water that connects to larger
bodies. Bless sensations:
when lost, hear a tender voice.
Copyright Credit: Alan Felsenthal, "Open Openly." Copyright © 2018 by Alan Felsenthal. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow.
Source: PoetryNow (2018)