Poem for My Lover’s Limp Dick

Every spring, you are baffled
that the cold does not last
forever, that there will be a day
warm enough to feel wet
Earth beneath your bare feet
and watch the bumblebees,
soft and round and happy.
I can tie the hammock
between two trees and wait
for your body to press into mine
and remind me what sun-
kissed skin feels like. I can wait
for you to feel whole again,
but baby, it’s snowing in April
and my bed is still empty.
I close my eyes and can’t help
but long for strawberry ribs
and breathless nights, of cosmos
and heat lightning and your teeth
pulling my bottom lip as gently
as I cup a firefly from the air.
I can cover the baby’s-breaths and
wait until morning, wait for the
frost to melt, and baby, I can wait
for the sounds of birds and cicadas
and the crashing of waves and the
crashing of you into me, of feeling
so full that I could burst but instead
hold your hand and beg please,
beg don’t stop. I can wait for finger-
print rose petals to mask my body
and the gasped I love you so quiet,
I almost miss it.

Sara Perkins Marshall is a 2019 graduate of the University of Indianapolis and a future student of the Indiana University Master of Arts in Arts Administration program. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have been published in Indiana Review Online, Indiana’s Best Emerging Poets, Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle, and elsewhere. Her first nonfiction book is due in early 2024 from the Indiana Historical Society Press. You can find her at saramarshallwrites.com.