making love with no love
(kissed her with his freedom)

<•>

a new person in an overnight stay in a strange,
aptly named,
bed and breakfast

and

you do all the same things that just feel good, careless loving
that comes from practiced renewable remembering,
kiss her neck for hours, drink in her crescendoing cooing

rename her Appalachia, bemused, wondering why,
she gasp-asks, when your tongue traces her odyssey body
from her Georgia to her Maine, then no need to explain

it all feels familiarly strange, imbalanced, shaky, loving the thrill
of your first solo bike ride, an invisible hand letting go,
the wow of walking the line of new freedom and
old responsibility that you have walked on both coasts

carry on, love is coming to us all lyric, enacted-recalled,
loving yet another
long cool woman in a black dress with unquestioning

how to explain to her, how to yourself, loving with no loving,
and the best you can stammer is it is like writing a poem
with too many commas or none at all

she laughs you up with one mouth lingering,
then one amazing kiss on your heart
and nose,
grabs a piece of toast and gone girl,
then you are returned to alone, to the dreams that
may or may not have occurred and two hands overflowing with
too many commas
and none to keep
<•>


11-18–17 2:54am, somewhere