Waking up, Again
Erin Clarke

Pleasure is the wake-up call,
The ding-dong come and play
Edged with twinkling tingles
Charged by leaned-in conspiring,
It’s silky body butter
Remembered right after the shower,
Whispering sweet nothings with each glide
To all your luscious landscapes,
It’s donuts after sleeping in,
Then lying flat to spot
Constellations in the spackle–
A galaxy of favorites tucked in rorschach ceiling blots,
It’s warm slippers on cold toes
And neck nuzzles at breakfast,
It’s a ripe pear yielding
To testing teeth and curious tongues,
It’s walking for the sake of beats
Pounding through concrete
And the excuse to pull fresh breezes
Into your restless cells,
It’s absorbing all the string sounds
Echoing through hollowed wood,
Loving the hands deftly
Worshiping their instrument,
It’s celebratory wiggles because soft clothing
Kindly hugs and your favorite mug is waiting
To be cupped by grateful palms,
It’s wearing sparkles with no agenda, and playing like you mean it,
It’s Doubt shrinking into the corner
Newly chastened, power waning,
While the body sings YES in gorgeous chorus
Forging intrastellar joy,
Selene and other goddesses
Can’t compete with my delight, I gush

Disco glitter moonbeams wrapped in chuckles wrapped in rapture
When the tendrils of depression finally slacken at long last,
When I am unbound and once again awake.