The world is God's own concubine,
Naked on this April morning
Cool enough to perk pink buds
Of a hundred billion roses,
Expectant of the yellow bees
Whose needs are close to mine.

Two more mass shootings overnight
Get scant reporting being less
Body count than the one last week
Or the ordinary bad beat.
Our heart goes out so much it's lost
The way back to it's own door.

I drop the beat, it's my own fault--
My mother bought the dimestore books
I wanted more than toys, and read them
Till I knew the words, correcting
Any one misspoke so I've got
Them now--will trade for your kisses.

My great teacher, Guy Davenport
Told of the time he put out Sartre,
On fire in Paris,
Set by his own tobacco pipe
Stuffed back in his jacket pocket
On a park bench.  Imagine that.

My own mistakes overshadow
Yours, and I'm running out of space
To sustain this unlikely conceit.
If verses ever did part lips,
I'd keep my pen in hand all night,
Exhausted lay beside it.

A taste I can't forget what sings
At your command--Oh how I love
The narrow path on which you glide,
The lies that only look like clues,
Discarded wrappers of long dreams
That I have slept through every way.

When paradise gets tedious,
I have it on God's word he'd trade
Eternity to hear your sighs.