fifteen kisses before the day began
today i count your kisses and
hide the tally marks inside an
envelope marked 'receipts'
never imagining
under blankets smelling like
marshmallows and closets
being lost like we are at this moment
either we are strangers or cannot
remember ourselves
maybe august will pass slower
even slower than this day that
appears only as
numbers accumulating and pushing the
sun up and away from us
nothing yells that it needs to be done
only patters along
the floor and slips in the cracks
how do we ever hold on to these
infinite seconds that adhere us
newly one to the other
gentle and wild and warm
BIO: Emily Belzer is a student in CSULB's MFA Creative Writing Program. She started her college career at Long Beach City College (She was Emily Dice back in those days) and returns there to sit in Frank Gaspar's poetry workshop. No matter when she goes or who is there it always feels like home. She took Frank's workshop class 3 times before moving on to UC Riverside to get her B.A. in Creative Writing. He is the reason that she ever took poetry (and her poetry, more specifically) seriously. She lives in Huntington Beach with her husband, Ben, and their two cats and will be graduate with an MFA in May 2007.
