TOUCH

Ross Gay

an excerpt
with Austin and janan
after Robin Wall Kimmerer



I touch my ear to the dandelion’s toothy come hither,
Hands outreached as though to say take some

Take some.  Don’t take all.  The silences
are here to show you something.  The dearth 

of touch here for you too.  Dandelion’s
hand breezes against my empty ear, my ear

full of nothing.  Says listen to me
today.  And the fungus laddering the stump.

The acorn snoring beneath the straw.  The squirrel
praying over a walnut husk, the fluffy question

of tail refracting the light.  Oh it’s sunny
today. You’ve noticed, the little sun

of the dandelion sings to me.

ROSS GAY teaches poetry at Indiana University and is the author of the poetry collections Against Which, Bringing the Shovel Down, Lace and Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens (with Aimee Nezhukuzmatathil), River (with Rose Zinnia), Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, Be Holding, and the essay collection The Book of Delights.

Originally published August 2020 in poiesis 1.2: syzygy by w the trees.