Laura Jan Shore Biography

Mutable as a cloud
sculpted by wind, I didn’t
understand the boundaries of skin.

Then the heat of your hands,
a cradle for my cheeks,
fingertips at my brow,

how you tilted
my face, left to right,
like holding rare fruit.

Our lips almost touching as we hummed,
we played with oscillation and pitch,
until our notes met and split and met again.

A kind of mating in mid-air,
voice to voice,
intimate as sex.

I mortgaged half my life for this,
willing to ride the chaos of your moods
just to steep in those rare pools of resonance.

After you died, I listened deep
into the night until I heard
the frequency of us.

Now your absence reverberates
through my cells, the shush-shush
of the sea seeping through the blinds.