look at your
    familiar edges
    as i open you
    s l o w l y,
    delicately as
    autumn kisses full,
    the ground of no
    pulchritude,
    and smell you
    burning with
    indomitable perfume.
    page after page,
   leaf after leaf
   and so it goes that
   my love fares
     moribund tides
    of unrest.

       and in steep
   silence, the unsettling dream
   of dust in the stolid dark
   repeats like the many spires
     of day and the troubles
    of night - in my heart-shelf
    i shall fasten you to mine
     chest, dream mazy into
    the paragraphs of your kisses
     as my eyes end to read
      in their gentle closing.
     in the morning, i shall
       come to being, and read
        you again!