the more you talk
the more i get
the sense of something
that hasn’t happened yet
the more you talk
the more i want to know
the way i’ll remember you
when i go
— Ani DiFranco (Names and Dates and Times)
sending some love out into the world, just because.
My circle-of-fifths lover,
I come to you
to make music.
IS/ IS NOT
A collarbone is not a bench for you to sit on.
A collarbone is not collector’s necklace or
a fainting couch. A collarbone is not a swing-set
or a ladder. Not a church beam, not a high
wire at the circus, nor a string between
two cans.
A collarbone is not a pool-side curb.
Is not the grace of baby grand piano swerve.
Is not a mantel for your candles, or a floorboard
for your letters. A collar bone is not the creep
of coral underwater. Nor an edge of blue
in Winter’s gray. Is not the headboard
of a bed or lock on door, car’s bumper, nor
a sailboat mast. Is not a handrail.
A collarbone is not a dog bowl or
a tide pool, or a thimble’s tin.
Is not a promise or a daisy chain.
A collarbone has never been a back-porch
or a bottle lip. A diving board’s bounce
nor the chattering of teeth.
A collarbone connects one should-
er to another and a cage
of ribs to throat. Is body bone. Is marrow:
mine. Is not the binding on reporter’s note-book.
A collarbone’s not telescope nor constellation.
Will never be a perch for your bright bird.
—Elaina Ellis
