“The Improbability of Balancing Worlds” by Maureen Daniels

I don’t want you to be so self-controlled.
Unthread yourself a little in my arms.

 

Unfurl your tethers. Trust what I can hold
even when I soften toward your charms.

 

I want the beast in you to launch against me
with your delicious butterfly mouth

 

holding the secrets that make my sex steam.
Little worldly woman, your nether touch

 

and blue slip-stream eyes are voracious,
taut as the tightrope we dare to walk.

 

I want us to reach that difficult place,
that pointed peak where words, where talk

 

becomes the sharing of a shore I never
thought I’d see: an end to dreaded weather.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maureen Daniels grew up in England and San Jose, California. She has a B.A. from CUNY Hunter College and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from CUNY City College. She is the winner of The Doris Lipmann Prize, The Stark Short Fiction Award, The Audre Lorde Award, and was a runner up for the Astraea Emerging Writers Award. Her poems and short stories have appeared in publications such as Lambda Literary, Global City Review, Nibble, Scapegoat Review, and others. She currently lives in New York City.