I See Myself in the Santa Fe River

I reckon I know what intimacy is
this time around, that
one teeny water drop
on top of the Santa Fe
means more than the whole damn
summer thunderstorm could,
that to feel each individual bit
of tender rain
touching the surface
is the point.
I know by now that lips
can be touched
without any plan to kiss them,
that sometimes our fingertips
deserve their moment of softness
because the intent really is to
just.
It takes a ticklish heart
to call that enough, to feel
bits of earth between your toes
and not need to sink down
more, to not wonder
what this poem would look like
if I were to take it just a little bit
further …

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Callie Crouch (she/her) has an MA in Writing Studies from Saint Joseph’s University and is attending law school at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her flash fiction and poetry appears or is upcoming in numerous journals and anthologies, some of which include Barbar, Coffin Bell, Olit, Orca, Roanoke Review, Volney Road Review, Pinky Thinker Press, and Barely South Review. Callie is from Florida but is making a transition from Philadelphia to Colorado while working toward releasing her debut novel, Idalia. You can find her at calliecrouch.com