Margins
She and I, our silences,
hesitations--at the grocery store,
in the taxi, on the street. We love
at the margins of
democracy--between
a legislative building and
the touch of her hand
on my cheek.
-Heather Holliger
Used by permission.
Heather Holliger teaches
writing at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Her poetry
has been published in many literary journals, including the Aurorean, Gay & Lesbian Review, Labletter, and Sugar Mule, among others. Her work also appeared in the anthology Riffing on Strings: Creative Writing Inspired by String Theory. She is a former editor of So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language & Art and has written news stories for Ms. magazine online.
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I went to the bathroom and was thinking some thoughts along these lines, wondering how to approach my life with this person or without her, which may be the case in case other things come up, as they do in life... as I said, I felt weighed down.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, as I was washing my hands, there were no paper towels left to dry them and I grabbed a piece of paper that was already a little wet that was laying next to me on the sink.
A poet myself, I immediately understood the text to be a short poem, and as I read it once, and then again, I was a little teary-eyed, but smiling, at the way the world works and how incredible some things can be as to have picked up this poem, on this day, in this bathroom, at my college, to read your work "Margins", a poem about loving "at the margins of/ democracy"
Incredible. Beautiful.