CREATIVE WRITER & Creative writing teacher
R A C H E L A. L E V I N E
BEING WITH YOU
Being with you in woods, in cars,
in narrow beds of arthritic old women.
Being with you, the sweet smell of summer,
your mouth,
like returning after long good byes to leaves turned upside down
in the wind.
Being with you,
behind your amber eyes,
long rope of velvet fingers,
time so small I can slip this silver band through it.
Being with you like being coy, like
being insane and stripping all my clothes off in the wind.
Inside me like water in a conch,
a star in the universe,
being with you.
LOVE POEM #1 February, 1979
I had a lover who moved like the ocean over me.
And like the sea, he couldn't decide to stay or go.
So he, like the waters, did both, all day every day.
I burn with patience, waiting for his return.
He moves in with a torrent upon me and I turn away.
I am the moon, exerting a pull I do not understand.
One night we grew close,
me, the sharp shining moon,
and he, the warm willowy waters.
Intertwined, we told each it other it was hopeless.
But he kept rolling over me, even the dark side,
and I kept lighting his waters,
until one day he flowed out to the open ocean where
there was only the expanse, and only the moon could be seen in the sky:
His vast open waters, grabbing, clinging to the shore,
and my rim of light upon those waters.