Oh, how I delight in the taste
     of my lover’s scent
     as she cries out my name!
In my arms, a slender orchid
     worshiped to soft placidity,
     she murmurs
     do I still yearn for my virginity?  
And I whisper, my love,
     ten thousand times
     ten thousand times, no.

For what we tender feel in lost virginity
     is not for lost virginity alone
Not for a shred of skin or a drop of blood;
     what human being mourns this?
That small ***** we feel
     is the eternal mortality
     of all lost first experiences.
Then let us thank the Gods they spare us,
     for now,    
     our last virginity.

Think now upon the family and friends
     we have lost
     to disease or hunger, to time
     or accident, to addiction or war.  
How shall we remember them
     if not their names?
How shall we speak of them?
Will you remember me?
     Or shall I become as dust in this temple?

Loudly, all my loves, hear me,
      come now with me!
Let us leave this temple for a time,
     walk with me to my secret garden
     where we shall remove these robes
     and look upon one another
     with the gift of acceptance
     and where
     we shall place flowers in our hair.  

Where we shall hold hands
     and walk a bit farther
     to the river and bathe one another
     in the moonlight.
Then let us return here to celebrate
     the memory of the fallen
     as the Gods intended.
Let us remember the names,
     let us speak the names and lest we forget,
cry out their names.

long ago; in many lifetimes past,
there lived a lonely snooch in the
middle of the big forest; she looked
out of her hutch at the big world
around her, her little head peeping
above the brush she sees the navel
up north over the hill of tummy &
southward the world divides in two
ending w/ the ten-toed pair of feet
that smell of stinky sneakers & once
a month for about a week she has to
wear a mask to hide her string; or to
hold her pad b/c blood leaks & other
snooches tell her about the penises
they've been seeing   [describing
something like a hot-dog *******
a bun]; but the brave snooch told
them what she wanted most    was
another snooch, a different aroma,
maybe more wrinkly or bald; the other
snooches weren't at all appalled; 'She's
been reading Sappho again,'  they said

9
[I love the sensual
For me this
And love for the sun
Has brilliance and beauty]

The stars shine with you
See you in the day
Seize me with light
Until I become blind

Out of sight
Out in the night
The moon shines
And borrowed your light

I feel like burning
Body, dehydrating
I regret staying
Under the menace of the sun

it’s a dream, too good to be true; i comb her hair with my fingers
i bid my eyes to stay shut and in my ear i hear nothing but her whispers
confused but content, i sigh into her bare shoulder
and find myself carried away into the deepest kind of slumber

she is here—my love—and her love borders on tangible
the dips and bumps of her body under my fingers: palpable
she pushes but she doesn’t shove, she pulls but she isn’t careless
yet her gaze and her words, they are everything but selfless

i count the stars til i run out, then i trace with a finger the freckles on her face
in her sleep—not mine, i checked—she is nothing but softness and grace
her heartbeat against mine might be too good to be true
but this is not a dream and my reality is, "you"

the laddering of my ribs creak
like water-stained cherrywood stairs;
tread lightly, lest you
stir the dust and the ghosts
that dwell underfoot,
‘neath the cracked floorboards
of my skin.

i have but a simple request:
               rid yourself of your lungs
               and fill up the empty spaces
               with used coffee filters,
               crinkled wrapping paper, and
               forlorn hope. do
cast aside
               the shroud of indecision?, for
               that winding sheet will only
               hold you down between
               your shoulderblades, like
               framed butterflies pinned on paper
               with needles of stone and salt.

stay with me tonight.
we will be taxidermy birds
on marionette strings
with crumbled concrete
between our talons,
the afterimages
of neon diner signs
stamped into our inner eyelids
oscillating, phantasmic.

we'll sing elegies in spring
rock sugar on our tongues—
               there are staves of music
               written in the lining of your mouth
               and in the webbing of your hands
––as Sappho might say:
girls, sweetvoiced.

oh! but to think
that the starfire in your eyes
could be extinguished
by the tears you shed;
i’ll return my heart to the constellations
for you

You, clipped little fragments
divided and crumbled
as the asymmetrical pinions
of the Winged Samothrace,
I spoke “****** soft spoken”
unedited, fluid, effortless,
aroused by Fortune
and I was christened
within rapture, your creator’s
“poisoned wounds” and “secret pains”
electrifying my heart and mind
inspiring such a preface
such a volatile violet passion
and I am moved by this color
by this flower
by this name
those fragrances still pouring
centuries after decimated
marble, demolished syllables
slaughtered by gender or genius
status or progression

He dreamt he was Sappho's trusted companion,
To whom she shared her love's poetic lessons.
And then came this moment of revelation;
He longed to be a woman and make love to her.
Things are not as they seem  at the outset,
That part of him madly in love with Sappho"s secrets
Didn't really know is it her body, soul or poetry
That made him go mad with an intoxicating pleasure.

The other part of him in love with himself  more,
Protested"I desire her like a man does a woman"
Love is insane often, it is hidden within the masks worn.
In every passionate love affair, is a river of fire to cross.
Love puts him in a dilemma,without any resolve at sight.
In a life ensconced in fantasy, he is steeped in a  love stupor
If ever he again wakes up, he'll try to make lasting peace,
Slosh in the poetic wine of Sappho and desire her all the more.

Sapphic sapphires glisten in the moon
These ladies say that Hades makes them as dry as a sand dune
Maleficent and Cruella mark their spells on their heads
And quietly they tiptoe and sneakily their treads-
Move with a rhythm only grace can create
Enchanting are these women, seeing them is fate
To be an audience member to their auras and their moves
Is an opportunity that is divine, spiritually proved
Indigo in color, L words leave their lips
Straight and curvy bones and fat   vibrate from their hips
They mesmerize, they enchant, they let their inhibitions soar
Until they dance away, unhinged, and you can't see them anymore
Remember this encounter, it is one that will inspire
It will make you feel a type of way, it will ignite a fire

They laughed as
I leaped over holes
looking down,
feeling like I'd
never fall in love.
Then
you fell from the sky
... and I'ad neverbeen-
crushed so sweetly.