I lie on our bed cradled in winter
dressed in thick flannel sleep pants
a ratty shirt I’ve worn to bed for days
and a gray hoodie with dingy sleeves
my partner wants to snuggle her dog
Charlie between us just a while longer
the one who lays in this bed
all day while we work
her fox-orange hair statics
our eyelashes and socks
our other dogs take
their positions in kennels
and beds on the floor
she is beautiful
both of them
I am needy
only six years as us
and already this hour
can be work
how to love this despite
what we haven’t done
in months and won’t do
tonight
the succulents still lean toward
the sun-heavy window
over the sink
warm in the face of these cold
high desert days
tonight I will dream
about her leaving me or
about me leaving her or
again about teaching
in a classroom/restaurant
full of people doing
whatever they want
beautiful in their defiance
of my voice
but I will get louder
and frustrated
no one will listen
and all I want
is for them to know
later I’ll see it
even in my terror
and lack of control all
is fine the students
are fine
the bodies absorb
all they absorb
I watch my lover
in love with her dog
I am nowhere close
to patient
still these are the hours
of sharp truths
people are dying
as they cross borders
falling off rafts
into the unopinionated
fury of the sea
are quickly shot
for their skin despite
being only twelve
with no time left
to defy
I am still here and so is she
who knows if we deserve this
to love is still
the most defiant act
Tara Shea Burke is from Virginia and lives with her partner in the East Mountains of New Mexico. She has an MFA from Old Dominion University, served as poetry editor for The Quotable and Barely South Review, and volunteers for and guest edits Sinister Wisdom, a Multicultural Lesbian Literature and Arts Journal. Her chapbook Let the Body Beg was published by ELJ Publications, and her poems can be found in The Fourth River, Adrienne (Sibling Rivalry Press), Yellow Chair Review, Calyx, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. www.tarasheaburke.com