Cheryl Marie Wade

Poet, performer and disability culture activist, 1948–2013

A Night Alone

By Cheryl Marie Wade

Longing tugs at my bones listens closely for his clumping braced footsteps on the gravel drive listens for the sliding of his worn shoes across the kitchen floor and the strike of the match Longing catches in my throat imagines his hands on the pipe his hands stroking the cat imagines his hands Longing dries my mouth reaches for the sounds of him moving room to room Longing holds his sounds between my thighs and brings him home.

About this poem

First published in The Disability Rag, September/October 1992, p. 36, as one of “Three Poems”, with “all that sits between” and “The Way She Tells Him” (printed as “Thewayshetellshim”).