I can't help that she calls me, love.
You've said yourself, she was a jealous mistress.
I'm well quit of her, and she of me,
though she still calls.

...oh but her body hides sweet pink flesh
and the salt, the salt on my tongue...

I've never regretted a night
Spent here with you, you know that, love.
There are things a mistress can't give,
And you've given them all to me.

...oh but she's wet and in her I'm slick
with me, she didn't crash, but flow...

Why doubt your own gifts?
The bread of your body,
This home made with four hands,
And the children, our love made real?

...oh but we are froth together
and moonlit dancers, fast, slow, bound...

I've never looked back and I'll always come when you call.

*...but I always look back
always come...

Kiss me here, her fingers said
tracing the chalky porcelain
of her woman’s jaw,
light as a water bug
skimming the surface,
over that seam between
flesh and mask,
where the little girl ended
and the doll began, draped in
lace and fragile gossamer
but so very little substance.

I will make a poem of this:
coffee so dark
the cream
is a dull
roiling
grey;
a sink
breathing
mossy fumes
but I won’t notice
for at least another day.

Echoes lurk in
converging angles
linking what is to
what might have been.

If I don’t look
I won’t see
the empty bed,
the empty bed
in the
extra room.

I have your heartbeat
she said cupping
her cool hand over
his clothed chest
shifting on his lap
just to feel the way
his arms tightened
around her waist.

Tap
    the thesaurus
lightly
    so the poem
ripples
    into place

I trace my dedication
       to you
with a fingernail pen,
delighting at the way
the pale inscription
       on you
blossoms with breath.
Anyone else would
blush at this verse
       but you;
I am never more a poet
than in these moments,
       with you:
this casual meter
       between us
built of shivering.

While this new fire burns,
casts its light on your face,
I will learn every crease,
every worry tucked within.
And what of your hands,
what of these knuckles,
large and calloused pearls
that never knew the sea;
why this salt on my tongue-tip
the quiver of tidal currents
carried through you and so
into me. I would have it all
to be sweet, to be dear,
while this new fire burns.