You were a smeary bruise,
your eye hysterical,
cut from white twill
in the brumal March;
I slipped my blues,
to a blonde chorale
in your room, on the hill
gushing with larch.
We practiced slow,
while black cones bled
coffee. Your breath
came in little throws,
your heart in parcels of red,
that led to our little death.

I’ll slip my shoes off,
love you quietly.

Take baby steps, and
place cold soles

With care enough to
avoid the sharps.

Oma watching
television downstairs,
while blue room sheets
squared back in peels,
& honeysuckle's ladder
up the brickwork
reached like spring fingers
towards my window,
where in brown shadows
I saw foxes steal over
the crumbling drive,
& clouds crashed trees
atop deer eating lawn
where uncle's autos coruscated
in the tall wilds.
In that bed I came of age
with thoughts of women naked -
New candles ached
and led the way deeper
as they dripped
all across my adolescence.
Years bloomed inside me,
stones fell from the sky,
hard as ***; fox bones
slept in the wood,
the televisions all sat,
idols on the lace,
flickering presses
that touched every wall.
The moon a wet thigh -
something sang,
& burrowed beneath the pillow.

There is nothing but the murmur of your breathing as the silver moon cutting across the darkness spreads its luminous light across white sheets. I am the keeper of the silence. You are the keeper of the sensuous. I kneel beside you on the bed, gazing at your flaxen hair. You are asleep now. I am enthralled.  The rest of the room is in darkness, highlighted only by silver streams, a chiaroscuro by the ghost of Giotto. I kiss you lightly on the forehead. You do not awaken. I begin to pull the white sheet gently from your shoulders to below your knees, a panoply of pulchritude. Silence and darkness and silver streams are timeless. Sleep, dear Sarah. I am the keeper of the silence, a post more regal than a throne, a crown. We are at the epicenter of love. Sleep, dear Sarah, sleep.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Yes, of course.

Those were the words I found in me.

In a space filled with women, it was a chorus of memory -
and I didn’t spill so much as drip those words to floor.

Yes, of course.

I inhaled alone, then exhaled the room.

In a pause filled with men, it was a shy breath of honesty -
a fortunate few breathed in and out by themselves.

Yes, of course.
Yes, of course.

Has anyone here experienced **** or ****** assault?

Yes, of course.