by Heidi Williamson

What waters our bodies have received
—each filament of rain
coursing the length of our skin
lies undiscovered now at this dark hour.

In here, the night is quiet and cool. Outside,
the wild rain courts the grass: even in the dark
I feel its greening—the grass glossed like keratin smoothly
anchoring, protecting the dust of us.

I lean against the solidity of your clement body
soft with sleep, lean in to you. On your arm, your hand,
each tiny hair responds to my disclosing touch.
The territory of your body grounds me, strands me.

The grass has craved this all day:
the phantom rain fell too lightly to reach land,
the heavy sun striking out
droplets as they formed.

Above all, my uncontrollable heart
coils wild as the wild rain outside
springing right back up again
from the earth where it belongs.

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Heidi Williamson is the current Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of East Anglia, UK. She is a poetry surgeon for The Poetry Society and teaches for The Poetry School and National Centre for Writing. She mentors poets by Skype worldwide. The Print Museum (Bloodaxe) won the 2016 East Anglian Book Award for Poetry. Electric Shadow (Bloodaxe, 2011) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. For more, please see www.heidiwilliamsonpoet.com.