three poems

by Francesca Leader

First ASMR Experience During Lesson in Indigo Dyeing (Hokkaido, Japan, 1999 - #1)

There was no word

in any language

I then   knew

for the tingling                        hypnosis,

the grace emanating from

pitch-haired girl

in white kerchief

as she pushed the roller           back and forth,            forth and back

across                                                                          blue-black -

the dye’s sticky                       prickle;

crackling          spread.

What could I make of it?

I thought I was falling in                     love.

There Was a Light (Hokkaido, Japan, 1999 - #2)

You drove me home from the hot spring

on a midnight road that ribboned the pine

and cedared mountains. Your girlfriend,

knew about it. Knew we’d been naked

in the water together. She didn’t mind.

There’d been a time, you told me, when

another friend of yours “needed” you—

sexually. You girlfriend understood.

She allowed you to go to that

friend, comfort her in the way she

desired. You were five years older

than me. I was twenty. I felt I’d

been born beside you when you looked

at me, eyes shining like dark reverse

images of the moon.

We had no music, because the CD player

in that beat-up, borrowed car wasn’t working.

You smelled the way I smelled from the spring—

sulfurous and salty. We smelled more or less the same

as if you'd embraced me in that pool, pushed,

like warm water made flesh, inside my body.

Instead of music, you talked about music.

You know that Smiths song? you asked. The one

where he says he wouldn’t mind if a bus crashed

into them? If they died together? Yes, I said.

That’s how I feel, you said. That’s how

I feel now. I knew you meant it. I knew

in that moment, you loved me more

than the woman who was

waiting for you.

I Know the Bedroom Door Is Not Quite Shut

When I hear an air current catch/making the latch

*tap-flutter-tap* on the strike plate—but I won’t

rise to close it/because it sounds like you, sliding

into my dark bed, matching your/soft metal to my

tender ore, the safety of a door *clicking* shut—fit

tight, world contained.

Photo of Francesca Leader

BIO: Francesca Leader is a Montana expat living and writing in Northern Virginia. Find her @mooninabucket/mooninabucket on most socials.