NaPoWriMo Day 30: For the last day of NaPoWriMo, I’d like you to try an odd little exercise that I have had good results with. Today, I challenge you to write a poem backwards. Start with the last line and work your way up the page to the beginning. Another way to go about this might be to take a poem you’ve already written, and flip the order of the lines and from there, edit it so the poem now works with its new order. This will probably feel a bit strange (and really, it is a bit strange), but it just may help you see the formal “opening” and “closing” strategies of your poems in a new way!

Pushing back my hair (you had me)
Waxing Gibbous / Yet no syllables escape
Who am I to reason this tidally locked intoxicated swoon?
Your generous warmth envelopes my exposed parts
Under an 88% illuminated moon my fully exposed heart
I do not hesitate to participate, accepting my fate
Our full mouths agree under this waxing humpbacked moon
There is no second guessing / No false start
Exhaling our breath, surrendering to the lunar phase
Our tongues entangling is a foregone conclusion
You are kissing me and I thee / Most definitely
Without a single word a pact once made / No confusion
Over time this intention orbited our in-between spaces
Lighthearted and laughing, we had no destination
Effortlessly leaning in, sensing forces at play
Eyes piercing, no judgment, yet fixed is our gaze
(You have me) engaged in a gravitational conversation

~Just L (April 30, 2015)

Note: Originally published as “A Waxing Crescent Kiss” in the July 2014 Blender of Love Digest. I thought it would be fun to re-imagine that kiss in today’s lunar phase, and dare I say it, with another person! Thus, my heart going from 4% to 100% exposed.