James Owens

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Arrival

I dreamed I wandered the labyrinths
of her fingerprints for a year.

I dreamed for a year the taste of kissing
the soft skin at the backs of her knees.

For a year, I dreamed that her breath
wrote scarlet calligraphy in my veins.

I dreamed for a year of her breasts
and the rising tight buds of her nipples.

I dreamed that my sleep was tangled
for a year in the night of her hair.

When I woke I found the day beating
at her throat like a hummingbird's wings.

James Owens's most recent collection of poems is Mortalia (FutureCycle Press, 2015). His poems, stories, and translations appear widely in literary journals, including publications in The Fourth River, Kestrel, Tule Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and Southword. He earned an MFA at the University of Alabama and lives in Indiana and northern Ontario.