Kiss
Beginning
Awkward
Adapting
Adjusting
Slow
Searching
Surrende­ring
Lingering
Long
Wet
Arousing
Touching
Intimate
******
Breathl­ess
Need
Hunger
Desire
Now.
Now.
Now.
Unfolding
Unclothing
Skin
E­xposing
Vulnerable
Hunger
Now.
Now.
Now.
Tracing
Feverish
Flushin­g
Opening
Bending
Grabbing
Penetrating
Gasping
Moaning
Filling
Si­gh
Kiss
Kiss me again....

This little bag I hope will prove
To be not vainly made —
For, if you should a needle want
It will afford you aid.
And as we are about to part
T'will serve another end,
For when you look upon the Bag
You'll recollect your friend.

It has been two years,
two months
and twenty days
since the last time I posted anything here.
Yet I still get an email every few weeks,
from a new fan
or a new favorite
or a new comment.
And I never say thank you.

Thank you.

It's been a hell of a year.
Two years, really.
And I'm sorry I haven't thanked you all
individually.
One by one.
I'll try to keep up in the future,
because this is a wonderful community
and you are all wonderful people.
I appreciate all of your support.

Keep writing.

Keep living.

In the worst hour of the worst season
    of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
    He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
    Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
    There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
    Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.