is opening my front door
and seeing your face
in living, breathing color
finally, finally
I've missed you
get in here

is talking with you
for hours about everything and
laughing at the guy in the
grocery store who was
pushing guacamole like a drug
and inappropriate jokes and
quantum physics

is your hands in my hair
running through it so gently and
cupping my face
your fingertips on my skin
skimming lightly
making goosebumps rise
and fall and
rise again

is the taste of you
your/my hand balled up
a fist in my/your hair
a hand on the throat
nails down the back
bruised lips and
hitched breath
and just who is
holding who, here?

is looking in your eyes and swimming in an ocean of blue
drifting to sleep in your arms
or dancing with you in the car

is falling in love with you
and the surprise of
feeling that headlong
rush once more that
I thought was just a symptom of
first love; fleeting and never
to be felt again

I feel a pull in my chest;
an ache and a flutter
behind my sternum as if
the bird of my heart is straining
against the prison of my ribs
to be near you.
I don't blame it.
I crave you, too.

I cannot sleep with someone
holding me- I feel
trapped
within a lover's embrace
unable to move, twist and toss in my own rhythms.

Hold my hand, fine;
touch my back gently, but please
don't take my freedom in my sleep.  

I cannot sleep with
someone holding me

Why, then, do I crave your touch?
Why do I sink into deep,
still pools of sleep
with such ease
in the shelter of your arms?

And why do I feel its absence when
you're gone?

You kiss
my hand; each fingertip, one by one
slowly, softly
with such deliberate tenderness
that makes my chest
ache
with a feeling I cannot name
that feels a little bit like soaring,
and a little bit like falling,
and a little bit like
coming home.

Our lips are matches
that, struck against each other,
blaze up
brighter than the lights of your city;
brighter than the desert sun, and
I don't want the fire to go out.
So press your lips against mine again.
Strike the match
Let's see how brightly we burn.

The wind plays with my hair like a lover. 
I'm left disheveled and laughing.  
I'm drunk on sunlight and that particular shade of blue
of skies that have secrets, and they're not telling.