The morning is tender
& the world begins anew
Our bodies heavy with the residue of intimacy
Awaken with a delicate touch

We share laughter
We whisper
I bite your back -
Scatter kisses
Around your body
Like the first mist of rain after a long drought
Tracing your limbs -
To the rhythm of our breathing
Closing in on a cadence
Renewed by heartbeats converging
Deeper than any flower can hide

This moment is our interlude
Our sanctuary
Our echo of bliss
Kindling the start of a new day

________

The dim fragility of grace
Begins between voice & lips
Swallowing the distance between us -
We push back the walls of shadow
With a whisper
Tangled in the romance of hope
Which burns at the edge of sleep

Our future, with no voice of its own
Is sent to us as a gift
It undresses us
Passes thru
Like an internal wind
and like the lilac
We bend

__

I heard it in the wind
To leave
And leave again

My mother
Vanished into a blackbird
Her song
Shattered
Her frailty on display

My arms turned to branches
But she did not land

She wasn't mine
She was never mine

Her answers
Mounted the wind beyond her wing-tips
The sky is wounded
Her daughters
Briefly turned to doves
To see her off

Now she is a deflowered figurine
Capsized & silent
A ornamental memory
An iridescent spark
In the pocket of my heart

___________

We found love
Between the buildings of New York
In the beaches of St Johns
Within the trumpets of New Orleans
This inescapable attendance  
Reducing the world
To an ambiguous promise

This is the medicine
Our bodies
Become closets of breath
Which we lay neatly side by side

We are not clouded
By words or indecision
Darkness or resistance
We delight in travel
Sweeping over the details
Like the crushing of an old carnation

In each location
We leave moments
Of ourselves behind
Sifting thru the dust of conversation
The tide slides in and
We sculpt our dialogue -
Your voice
Stitching the unknown
To the known
The known
Which I turn
Into song

_________

While you slept
I whispered to your wounds
Uncovered your wings
Traced the highway of your arms
Back to the love in my heart

We laugh
& holds hands
On the beaches of Marco Island

We've slipped into the pages of a novel
This chapter has sun
This paragraph -
Sand & serenity
We sink into our beach chairs
Only to crush on the energy
The cadence of the waves
Reflected in her eyes
Where the gold light spreads
Arresting my affection -
My words performing
Restless
Having been asleep for so long
Drifting thru the tide
With the will,
The blessing,
The estate of the promise
Of a provisional paradise

Your lips part
& the words arrive
Dotting my mind -
Like a songbird
I take notice
I bristle

It is the beginning of all flowers
The beginning of the wind
That parted the palm trees

This is the time
When we learn
There is nothing else to ask for.
We sift the sand -
Our words turning to dust

& later the moonlight
Breathes us in
As it has always done.
The elegant night
Comes to a close
& we surrender unto each other
We commit
To a constant beginning

_____