The First Rule of Rock Tumbling is Rocks Must Be of Similar Hardness
by Jessica Jacobs
Naked on the front porch, the moon unfurling its light
as though for a picnic, our yard is silver
and set for feasting.
was all elbows and angles, with one pace, which
was my pace, which was fast
forward. She was all cushion and curve, considerable
sharpness shivved inside a pillow; deliberate
thinker, decision circler, all around
slow goer. Despite this, we loved hard enough
to want the other always at our side.
So, where others reminisce
of honeymoon years, ours were more
rock tumbler, more slurry and coarse grind,
two roughs bashing together until our edges wore
not smooth exactly but worn
into each other—gear-tight, cog in cog, turning
our shared hours.
Like this hour on this night,
when I stand between the moon and her
so she wears the light
like an unzipped jumpsuit: shoulders plated,
nipples burnished, outer thighs striped bright.
At her center, my shadow, that tailor-made
eclipse, a darkness exactly my size—though
we could easily change places, and have,
and will. She steps (sides-lit),
I step (backlit), to match
our shaded places. And only once we’re
fit like this, dark to dark, are we once more bound
by the light we each carry.
JESSICA JACOBS is the author of Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going, a memoir-in-poems of love and marriage, and Pelvis with Distance, a biography-in-poems of Georgia O’Keeffe, winner of the New Mexico Book Award and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Her poetry, essays, and fiction have appeared in publications including Orion, New England Review, Guernica, and The Missouri Review. An avid long-distance runner, Jessica has worked as a rock-climbing instructor, bartender, and professor, and now serves as Chapbook Editor for Beloit Poetry Journal. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her wife, the poet Nickole Brown. Find her on Twitter at @jessicalgjacobs.