Tupelo 3/30: The Tongues of My Fingers Ask

Dear Readers,

Day three: Today's poem

was inspired by a line in Bob Hicok's gorgeous poem "My Most Recent Position Paper," which appeared on the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day on April 28, 2016. I remember texting my friend the line "the tongues/of my fingers ask to be words/against your skin" and then carrying it in my head for the next few days. 

To be honest, I had trouble starting today's poem-a-day endeavor. I always want to write, but sometimes I really don't know what I'm writing toward. 

These days, I'm writing new poems for my second manuscript-in-progress and I'm also trying to write a few poems for my forthcoming book to fill some gaps/flesh out themes. I have a stack of index cards on my desk with topics and notes on them. Sometimes I can conjure a poem from these cards, and sometimes, I draw a blank. This was one of the latter.

If I was not doing Tupelo's 30/30, I disclose, I would have mined the crappy drafts I'd started and deposited the best language in my "Scrap Notes," where I will draw from in the future, and I would NOT have written a poem. 

But, dear readers, I could not let you, the whole Internet (who I know is reading these poems!), and myself down. Being part of this project demands that I come through.

So I thought about what language has arrested me in the recent past and I couldn't shake that Hicok line. So I had a title and the beginning of line. 

Here's an excerpt from "The Tongues of My Fingers Ask" (whole poem here): 

"...To slick 

the pelt of pelvic bowl, to tie the limbic's

cherry stem, knot to suck the sweet.

To mete out praise in measured taps–
ka ka ka­–a tabla’s rhythm snaps." 

Ideally, I think I want to spend more time with this draft. I think I could imagine more things that the fingers as tongue might do (in the most precise language as possible). I want this poem to sound as erotic as the type of touch I'm describing. 

Because of this project, I have a draft. Well, I really have three drafts because it's day three, but today was the first day I may have not written. 

Thank you for reading and for following the whole project and for donating!

Yours in poetry,

Emari

Ps. Tomorrow I will be debuting the first of the poetry incentive poems!!