Sacrum
Lover,
every time
I’m awash in fresh wonder
at the skin
at the base
of your back
It’s not what they call
the small,
the part turned
cliché
to show a woman
yearns
when a man’s hand
hovers
just above
her backside, resting in the swoop of her
waist.
Can I summon
words
to describe the softness found lower down
your back?
The skin that mantles your sacrum
exceeds
all down
all pelage
all silk
all milky flax
all burnished leather
all other skin
as my slipping fingers
circle
tracking holy surprise
Jules Chung (she/her) writes poetry and fiction. She is the daughter of Korean immigrants. She writes about gender, family, and middle-class joy and malaise. A 2021 Finalist for the Pleiades Kinder-Crump Prize and the One Story Adina Talve-Goodman Fellowship, Jules has been published in Catapult, Jellyfish Review, Armstrong Literary, Lumiere Review, Quince Magazine, and the Public Menace poetry anthology “The World We Want Is Us.” She is the 2021 short-fiction winner in the Chestnut Review Stubborn Writers Contest.
Jules lives in New Jersey and is working on a collection of stories. She can be found on Twitter @andthewordwas, Instagram @glorifyandenjoy, and at juleschungwriting.com.