A Poem For Sunday

“The Blind Stirring of Love” by Jean Valentine:

I rub my hands my cheeks

with oil my breasts

I bathe my genitals, my feet

leaf and bark

redden my mouth to

draw down your mouth

and all along

you have been inside me

streaming

unforsakenness . . .

(From Door in the Mountain: New and Selected Poems, 1965-2003 © 2004 by Jean Valentine. Used by permission of Wesleyan University Press. Photo by Takumi Yoshida)