You make love like the last
snow leopard. Time hunts your shadows.
Your grooves dip a real x of an arc.
I love your shadow. It's performance on the wall.

Your white hair flocked. It's old age that makes
you kill for food. You bring a long blank to
bed in, the weight draws out.

You need someone with skill for the excursion.
Ride through the reservoir of sour peaches.
Your name meanders through the grass. Tall
people are in the way. I crowd surf to get to you.

You spill me into the flood. Water rushes out your sides.

You make a mystery of playing political love.
I could kill for you. I'd bring you an eagle stuffed
with finches. It's pouch growing large and groaning
in your palm. A cliff of umbrellas and memory
shaping your every move.

About This Poem
"I would like to shock the body out of itself to occupy the other side of 'sense' to a place where we can indulge in primal instincts. If only we could negotiate time like an animal then maybe our memories would not haunt us, and we could attend to love with less depleted ambitions. In the course of writing this poem I was intersecting with my friend Elaine Kahn's poems and this was a response. I hoped to deaden the body that I was currently occupying so that my mind could be stretched across a landscape that includes more vulnerability. This poem is how I think an animal might love." - Paige Taggart

About Paige Taggart
Paige Taggart is the author of "Want for Lion" (Trembling Pillow Press, 2014). She is a jeweler and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.

(c) 2014 Paige Taggart. Distributed by King Features Syndicate