Long Distance

We have made love over the cordless phone,

pretending that 'hello' was our safe word,

still wrapped in gratitude for our distance;

we haven't graduated to real steel handcuffs, yet.



Our mouths have found ways to be more intimate

than our fingertips.

His lips have touched me 

where not even my mother has thought to caress.

His tongue strokes a part of me 

more near than my sex,

And more worn than my gender.



I have whispered away my virginity,

bedding his past reluctantly, 

because pre-pubescent trauma is far harder

to love than his rough hips, 

Bible Belt slung low and loose,

Almost too far South;
almost scandalous.



My mother thinks I'm lonely, 

because boys side by side 

cast brotherly shadows.

She misses hip huggers hugging unowned hips

and indirect kisses on melting chocolate bars

smeared across our lips and fingertips.



Her generation never laid down paper

for bedding, or passed pelvic rocking rhythm

through poems, she doesn't

understand hand holding 

through words, and to her,

a comma is just punctuation

and never makes her

gasp.