Tangent: touching
along a curve,
a surface,
without intersecting.

We are acquainted.
Contours quietly agree.
What I cannot guess
with my hands
I will consider
with my lips—

count the places 
I kiss you,
forget where I am,
start over.

It hauls you, gasping,
from the cool, murmuring depths 
and casts you, ardent and aching, 
for someone else's shore.

I want you to miss me so much

that when we kiss
I find our last kiss
still melting slowly
on your tongue.

The moon only wants everything,
her net always cast;
greed versus gravity.

The only things Earth cannot
hold fast to
are oceans and imagination.

.                                 
                              ­            oh no
                                wait wait
                                     drift stay
                             want pray
                                 dry soul wet wings
                                        clever clever costly 
                                               things rainy morning 
                                                          long leap heart beat
                                                    beat beat stretch reach
                                                 outgrow  g­od god don't go 
                                          branch water hurry melt did 
                                       you feel like I felt quick fix 
                                          heartsick minx eyes blink blink 
                                      blink hush hush hot blush say  little 
                                   mean much but please come sit touch
                                 bright sun brighter moon pretty promise 
                                  dark room heft spark smoke sigh chest                       
                                    ­rise  rise rise lazy looping butterflies
                                       I want the  night your eyes imply
                                               think fast   breathe  slow
                                                   ­         wait wait wait
                                                            ­           go

Little more than listless guests,
we play the game I-need-you-less.


Discord, missed turn, second guess;
things are different. Bitter? Yes.


Weary, naked– I'll confess;
you drew your hooked line through my chest


so meet me in your battledress
and if your blade finds  tender flesh,


I swear that with my dying breath
I'll say * "I won. I need you less."

The cold crouches.
Perched, ankles numb,
I quake with joy—
thorny with cold, slow
but hopeful.

On white horizon,
fire licks sky.
It comes
like comets, like horsemen.
I knew it would.