UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
( a pre-birthday poem for Jan )

Here in the close up
of this moment

five whirlpools
reach out for me

a double row
of scimitar swords

protect the orb
of seeing

there the sunken shaft
that rooted me to being

now as the camera
of the mind

pans away

the whirlpools resolve
themselves into

the whorls of fingertips
skin upon skin

the scimitar swords
row upon row

shape shift back into
eyelash after eyelash

and the navel
manifests itself

that mark of self
that once

tied me to the world

a kiss a kiss
another kiss

transforming the body
in its alchemy of love.