Fascination:
rosy contrails,
trembling cream.
This body
vault of heaven,
it opens;
Oh, clever artist.
Turn your nails up
score the sky;
violet swims
beneath the surface;
there are pearls,
ripe as grapes,
behind the door.

Oh, such colors.
Such color.

Yours
is peaceful strength;
I see you settled,
ankle perched on knee,
head bowed
with the weight
of male thoughts;
alien mind,
I cherish you for
that little smile
cast in my direction,
hardly a twitch
of those subtly
curved lips
but I see,
I see.
Oh, if I could
press you
into myself and
drink the masculinity
of you, become one
with it and
truly know what it is
to be a happy man,
I would.
For me, it is only ever
the imperfect joining,
the spill of fluids
and your ragged breath
caught in the cup of my
mouth.

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...

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.

I could tell you how the Square looks
sketched in moonlight;
I know the smell of mist fresh off the river,
and night air that parts like tired curtains,
with wet heat that sighs
and slaps the dock when you move on;
I’ve felt what a saxophone does
to the heart
over water,
and how a man’s voice sounds best after smoking,
but a woman’s is best after ***.

There are ghosts in these streets,
but they don’t hunger anymore;
hunger is for the living
not satisfied
with light.

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 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.

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.

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.

Stroke your arm and think:
The universe is bloodless,
Not I; this body
of flesh, veins, soft pulsing heart,
made to spill, to break;
Life, to the beat of mad drums,
or hands on my skin.
The universe is bloodless;
Not I, this body of flesh.

Tap
    the thesaurus
lightly
    so the poem
ripples
    into place

Do not say, "I am a goddess." Say instead,
"I should like to be a goddess in his eyes
while they hold mine, their light enfolding
everything including the clay at my feet."
What comfort in a crown of stars?
Accept the soil between your toes
and take the hands offered;
help them part your mysteries
reveal your precious, undeniable flaws.