I have been
the summoning lip
of a Flemish hunger, a school
of limber certainty, the wit
inside the horizontal.
Old enough
to need me, you arrive
adoring the waste
of logic. The three tests
of loving align your skirts
just so. An x-ray
reveals a small fish
who cannot sleep. I know
the future,
all of them.
I know
how a bin of coins
can chill a man, how ordinary
is silk when the worm is
wearing it.
I will take you
five letters beyond
annunciation. I will still
the hive in your chest.
This is my specialty.
This is necessary harm.
Vera Kroms was born in Germany to Latvian parents and now works as a systems consultant in Boston. Many of her poems deal with the split between cultures. Her work has appeared most recently inSpoon River Poetry Review, Perihelion, Birmingham Poetry Review, and Asheville Poetry Review.
