so afraid was i
                                    to put pen to paper

for fear nothing would come, nothing
                                                         ­      would reveal

                                                         ­                    and lo, behold—

                              what chance
                                            to have stumbled
                                    upon this place.


          and but what if all my love turned to dust?
                    it would matte the silence like an untouched skin

                                                           ­  electric

           it came unseen, anterior to knowledge

                                                      ­       exceeding it


desire was the flame, the heat, the function, the burning bright, the sun, the roar and the dance, the play of frivolous gods, the bite, the consuming, the unrest of molten core, spark, flicker

desire was the sea, the waves coming to claim what was only ever borrowed from them, the bounty and breast and beacon of life, that vast graveyard, the unending gift, now peace, now storm

and desire was void and lacked nothing and produced
the real


                                                          ­            and what, for all that,
                                                           ­                       remains?


a quiet collection of dimming experiences
the tender redolence of human encounters
a song and music in the heart, if you are capable of listening carefully
a whole body blessed with the texture of gratitude
laughter—its promise


                                                       ­               an eternal joy, given
                                                           ­           in the senses
                                                          ­            and senselessly          


go now among the strange things of this world
and may your existence be a dance across time


to have dared will always have been
the essential,


                                                    ­       come desert, or mutilation,
                                                                ­                         or even flight

                                                        i­f yet flight.


we do not yet tread among the ashes of the sun.
there is something vaguely familiar to hope in that
at the very least. on.