Let’s work this out in the dark.
I find you, you find me.
A snapshot under a streetlight’s warm brim,
small furred mouths taking
moth bodies whole.
Intimacy is blood in the pitched chambers,
trace and return, the long-foretold
figure-eight of oxygenated rush.
It requires blind faith.
Work and pump and beat—
See where the heart strikes the scaffolding of ribs,
its shape as clear as a rubied bell,
clapper suspended like a bird
waiting for its note to fly back?

Kristin Berger is the author of the poetry collection How Light Reaches Us (Aldrich Press, 2016), and a poetry chapbook, For the Willing (Finishing Line Press, 2008). Her long prose-poem, Changing Woman & Changing Man: A High Desert Myth, was a finalist for the 2016 Newfound Prose Prize. Her most recent work has been published in Contrary Magazine, The Inflectionist Review, Timberline Review and forthcoming from Four Chambers Press, Light Journal and Plum Tree Tavern. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she hosts a summer poetry reading series at her neighborhood farmers market. More at www.kristinberger.me.