[Poem.]

Spor a dic: n[o]. Love poem

                                                                     after A. Van Jordan

Rinse v. 1. To cleanse by flushing with liquid (as water): Shrubs, low houses, seventeen year olds; the kitchen window is just taller than my head if I stand in June evenings crossed through with shadows, rinsing dishes, ham grease crusted on. 2. n. murky: You, your bike, passing in the  rinsed light: pass twice, turn, pass again and then with one finger you’re raising goosebumps on my neck under my hair, 3. to remove (dirt or impurities) by washing lightly: rinsing me with kisses: kissing: it’s like standing in a direct spot of sun, or me a white shirt after bleach, back to clean-so-clean and flapping on the wash line over the hedge(s) n. 1. a fence or boundary formed by a dense row of shrubs or low trees; barrier, limit: all the neighbors use to keep their dogs fenced in; you kiss me like a mower, you flatten shrubs and open gates then 2. encircle: you reach forward and you’re hedging me; I turn and I’m hedging you 3. a means of protection or defense: we’re a small neighborhood in revolt, we’re sharp with thorns, 4. A calculatedly noncommittal or evasive statement: and we’re in your car with the ripped seats and I’m asking where to? And you start hedging, did I like the book about, you say, when you know I mean which state, let’s drive, I say baby let’s drive I say I feel shut in, I’m thinking how I’ve never seen a desert but then we’re necking and it takes me weeks to learn 5. to protect oneself from losing by a counter-balancing transaction: I’m here in case your girl-friend leaves; she doesn’t, and I’m laundry left in the rain long before I’ve learned to  hedge, yes it’s long nights on the telephone talking like a see-saw again adv. 1. in return: back: and I woke up this morning and wanted you to turn again to me, because my dreams smelled like your soap 2. another time: once more: anew: though there is, (and I know), no way to begin again even if you turned. 3. on the other hand: And then again I know better than to have what I’ve already captured, and 4. in addition: besides: again I know your lower half, your heart-tooth’s rotten root, so yes knowing better, I think of you spo rad i cal ly adv. occurring occasionally, singly, or in scattered instances; fitful: (yes, I think of you) and I’m fury without generation, watering my houseplants over the sill leaving splashes, pools as when, after infrequent arguments, my body found its way across asphalt to the park’s near entrance where rain met still water in starts and fits, and hands handled touch-me-nots, made to open—sometimes—when touched roughly or softly, springs and seeds bursting in all directions, parts to all of the plant exploding under my grasp into green fireworks of shock, scattering bugs in rinsed light, leaving you never knowing just which parts of me were freed, or how, or to where.

- C. Wilding