Encaustic, collage, found objects, 8” x 10.5” x 2.5”

Continue your present conversation for some valuable light

By Julia Talen

Maybe the light comes from between the ash leaves. 

Perhaps off the surface of bear creek. 

Is it sour? Sweet? You could write me someday, 

and I hope you will. Bring the light in from the windowsill, stretch the webs of your crinkled hands,

and listen to the conversation your bones and muscles make between our breath. Hush, hum.

Some 

conversation beckons, some is 

timid. Fluorescent. Candle. Remember when 

we crossed the stream in our tennis shoes, soaked our toes, told secrets into each other’s folds. Remember the cold, the fallen branches. Gone secrets. Bright red, 

soft orange. The color of my 

love for you. Spliced. May this continue 

into the miles our letters tumble 

through, into the miles 

of cells that make 

a hand, holding another 

hand. Touching indexes. 

I hope you write me. 

I hope you notice the language that passes

between bodies, in the brook. 

I hope you remember the star-mucked stream we lit beside.