Honeysuckle vines
slip blossoms
into the nests of herons.
We lose our shadows
in the widening dark,
and the sound of wings
is the wind shaking
radiance from the air.
Notice how vibration moves
through bodies like water,
how your fingertips
on my throat
make humming palpable.
The Way Desire Touches
MALAIKA KING ALBRECHT is the author of three poetry books. Her most recent book What the Trapeze Artist Trusts (Press 53) won honorable mention in the Oscar Arnold Young Award and was a finalist in 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Her chapbook Lessons in Forgetting was published by Main Street Rag and was a finalist in the 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and received honorable mention in the Brockman Campbell Award. Main Street Rag also published her second book Spill in 2011. Her poems have been published in many literary magazines and anthologies and nominated for Pushcarts. Her poems have won awards in several contests, including at PoetrySoutheast, the North Carolina Poetry Council, Salem College and Press 53. She’s the founding editor of Redheaded Stepchild, an online magazine that only accepts poems that have been rejected elsewhere. She lives in Ayden, N.C. with her family and is a therapeutic riding instructor.