There were certain
        disturbances:
Skirts high on the thigh,
        front-row desks and
        that shadow between
                the knees;
Questions showing
        the definition of the torso
        and the upraised arm;
Sojourns to the office
        at dusk
        to pose shyly–
                fingered tress in golden
                lamplight between door and frame–
        and the door closing;
And of course
        learning, passion,
        bright eyes and
        a vernal splendor
                of poetry.

My love is like
a play enacted on a curtain.
I can do anything with shadows:
sharp edges and dark heart.
Touch it– try to touch it
and the warm silk ripples away
and leaves nothing but the space
where the light travels.

Look where she flies, fleet-footed Syrinx,
her chiton drenched, her sole bruised.
See the stalks that kiss her calves,
bend to embrace, then spring back:
green as the nymph, slender as she,
fragile flutes and ankle-bones.
She thinks to hide her in a reed;

but she has always been a reed,
always shown the promise of instruments.
She has been brittle; she has dreamed
of the god's hand to splinter her,
and craft of tatters, beauty and music;
awaits the lover of earthen nails
to put his mouth on her, his life's breath in her,
and make her broken body sing.

I wanted to call you--
in the wee hour, when only
      the roach stirs, or
      the cat light-stepping
across
some unseen shadow--
my soft quick patter
      there was no choice, what's
      one rushed goodbye
there would have been a fight
let's be mature
      about this--

            I want to say this
pragmatism is humiliating
it hurts the heart
      a little
a man would hang
on the last word
from such lips--
      but I didn't
call, you might be sleeping
      it's hard for you
      to sleep on
warm nights like this.

Instead
I sit alone quietly
watching my own shadow
      indistinct, that
dark second guess of me
thoughts of care and cowardice--
a fine bright line
      of morning
            falls
there on the floor, from which
each moment clearer and more fierce
the insects flee.

Your lips are a mystery to me.
I have studied their soft implications:
how moisture beads, tongue-touched
after certain words have rained;

their principle unfolding beneath
the warmth of breath, gathered
upon their petals, as if
tasting the humid sun;

I want so much to know
how your lips blush shamelessly,
why their feathered curve feels
like a moan, how they ripen

subtly into kisses, the tongue
in which they say take of us
and feed, smear your pollen
we will make blossoms and smiles.

She loved the song that lent me wings,
its pale mythology of lust.
Reaching for words the singer sings
she clutched at feathers and found dust.

And now upon her swan-beat back
she bears the weight of firmer bones;
and I, who never heard a lack
of grace in any woman’s groans,

am lifted on her soaring hips.
Transfixed she struggles down to day,
choked by the earth between her lips,
treading a firmament of clay.

I.  Commute

Crumbled red leaves
car edging past the sign
eager to be gone.

Someday I will have
an office with a window.

II. Cubicle

My little walls
a speckled grey nothing
like the crow’s egg;
only high up
one rectangular pane.

III. Communion

At day’s end, light
kindles and burns along
her soft, copper hair.