Monday Morning Sneak Peek - THE LIGHT YOU CANNOT TOUCH by Erin York

Did a weekend of reading leave you wanting more? 
Sneaking peeks of your newest novel from under
your desk at work? 

For the eternal reader...here is your 
Monday Morning Sneak Peek!

Enjoy.

THE LIGHT YOU CANNOT TOUCH by Erin York

THE LIGHT YOU CANNOT TOUCH explores the many kinds of love through expressive poetry in the voice of award-winning LGBTQ author, Erin York. 

In the words of others: "THE LIGHT YOU CANNOT TOUCH is raw, wild, surprising, unafraid, and spry with flares of unforgettable brilliance." 
--Savannah Thorne, executive director of Balkan Press and managing editor of Conclave: A Journal of Character. 

"Erin York leaves no doubt that she's a writer of heart and vitality in these moving poems. She's one to watch, one to listen for when you need poetry to take you to places only the heart knows." 
--Allison Joseph, My Father's Kites: Poems and editor-in-chief of Crab Orchard Review 

"Erin York takes her reader from innocence to experience, through loss and gain, through the tangled bodies of love in unexpected ways." 
--Maryfrances Wagner, Red Silk, winner of the Thorpe Menn Book Award and co-editor of the I-70 Review.

www.erinyorkauthor.blogspot.com

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | GOODREADS

  Not Famous.

But Forever.

first published in Glass: A Journal of Poetry–2013

This spring replaced a dozing winter—

one where the sky opened its blue eyes to snow

only twice—

For Emerson Babylon, this spring rose from orchid buds

whose hard-shelled heads unwound for the sun,

whose parasitic feet wove beneath leftover leaves.

But because his eyebrows turned to hanging icicles—

their black scuff marks now faded to the winter—

he left his Pacific lodging and marched East.

Even after all these seasons,

he still searched for something right.

Maybe he went mad from all the walking, but

he kicked up fairy dust and flower petals

on his way to the end of the world.

Or Oklahoma.

He took root in red dirt and waited

for the apocalypse. The Second Coming.

Oh, and he ate ice cream.

Alone.

For days.

Another spring:

Emerson dropped his Albuquerque satchel

inside a too-small café. Papers became birds in flight.

One, he saw, nested in

her lap.

That woman. He’d snuck candy glimpses 

of her sun-washed hair.

Now, he had a new perspective—

Her eyes.

Beneath her brow’s penumbra,

they were two fountain pens

that inked a blue life spring.

A brand-new, silver-coated, chocolate-centered beginning.

One not raised from the apocalypse or a tragic end.

Like zombies.

He asked her to dinner.

She said yes.

In another season, when all the world was falling,

he learned she understood stonework.

Before they married, she told him, “We’ll build together—

—Our home and ourselves.”

So they mixed clay with the blood from their calluses until

the bricks that sheathed their house became their body.

And they could not leave it.

One night, when each orchid outside died,

and winter returned in waves like blankets,

she drew him into their bed,

folded covers into paper hats,

and laid a naked self before him.

They had been two, he realized,

as he unwound her and wove in his roots.

Now, they were one.

And he could not leave her.

And that was right.

A Sideline to Death

first published in Puff Puff Prose Poetry and a Play–2013

He says—

You spend your days dying

and log the time it takes,

while I discover my ulcer.

You tell me only two more weeks.

Two weeks until doctors

invade like the rapist does

and tug free the jump rope

and pink kickball, those

women parts whose names

I could never bring myself to say.

You tell me to leave flowers,

the fake kind, on your bedside

because they are the only ones

that last.

Okay, we have two weeks

until writing checks and wills and letters,

two weeks until signing them all,

as though they mean the same thing.

Well, go on then.

I’ll chew Tums in the waiting room

and remember the spring morning

when we had our whole lives

ahead of us.

What an age that was.

The stars were cracks in Heaven’s floor.

And God was an astronaut,

tethered, in a white suit,

to a place of safety.

The Light You Cannot Touch

first published in The Screech Owl–2014

Can you tell me the age where life

turns its roaring corner,

and the places you see

on the side of the road take speed?

For poetry’s sake, let’s say

the perfect age is thirteen.

Your world will be

brightest that year.

You’ll fall for the first time

with a girl or a boy.

Your nerve endings

will stretch through your pores,

and when your skin is electric,

you’ll try to forget you’re soft.

Don’t.

Let your world stay glazed

for a moment longer.

Let your youth shine

like light through dandelion seeds.

Take time to smell the dirt.

Catch rain as it falls through the trees.

Hold your kitten close

and your first dog as he dies.

You don’t know it yet,

but after your thirteenth year,

they’ll drug you with money, with speed,

with things that aren’t living.

Then you’ll remember all your pain.

Those memories, you could paint

on all the bills you’ll pay

on all the walls of all your empty rooms.

Your life will become a blur.

But I hope there will be moments,

like when you first see God,

that cause you to take pause, 

that will show you the light

you cannot touch.