Homework

I like homework that asks me to think about something and then write about it. I do that anyhow, for fun, and I learn about neat things that way-- like structural adjustment, for example.

I'm less a fan of homework that asks me to write about something that I'm supposed to memorize, or just know-- as opposed to thinking about it and writing, say, a summary of the main ideas or a response to it.

I'm especially not a fan of slog homework, where you do something fifty times over in order to learn it. Luckily for me, most of that stuff isn't strictly homework; it's given, but not for marks, so I can do it till I know it then leave it be.

I do like writing, though. You may have noticed.

Written as if for me

Found on the internet attributed only to 'Ju'

Please?

Can I come to you as I am,
in secret-
brimming with the need to be held?
Can I lay hot whispers on your skin
then taste how they make you feel?
Can I show you how to touch me,
how hard to press?
If I cry
can I hide salty tears
in the soft curve of your neck?
Can I bite, ever so gently,
before I scream?
Can I be your lover,
without you loving me?
Can I, please?

Exhumed

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Li-Young Lee