Visitor
By Khary Jackson

This was the night I forgot you were not here,
when my face buried itself in six feet of bed
and I learned a new way to love my body.
My hands began to believe they were you,
taking hold of me so soft,
you felt so close
I wondered if you were dead.

This, my prayer, is how absence should feel.
But only this night did I know this,
from the testimony of my own skin
and half-opened mouth.
This was when I knew I could breathe like this,
when this starving bed became a late night revival.
When, finally, your body comes to me,

we'll recreate the night you didn't know you were here.
Remember how slick was the mouth,
the pulse of the neck,
how I learned to summon you.
How easily an answered prayer can taste like God.

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