I painted you.
With trembling, amateur precision,
I suffered each line on your face.

Each fleck of sun,
Your candid smile,
Your immediate beauty in the foreground
Of an exceptional ocean.

Stumbling blindly through the days,
Fumbling for the switch
In a punch-drunk, love-sick afternoon.

Apart from you,
Stripped, exposed,
Laid prone on the gurney
With my skull in a vice
And a fist to my stomach.

I can barely stand because of you.

I painted you this afternoon
So I could toil in your gaze.
Pray I am an interesting splatter,
A noticeable blight;
A happy accident on your page.

in darkness
I left you
was when your heart was slow
instructed by the western strand
'gather your clothes and go.'

I missed you
this morning
we moved from where we strayed
slipping free of drunken vows
fevered flesh had made

your soft
small picture
commands me now to kneel
deny the gods I knew before
and drop this broken shield

I'll ask you
tomorrow
'please cut this tender thread.
it bleeds and binds my all to you,
your body, and your bed

that simple
small mercy
returns my broken life
where your kiss can never hurt me
Orion fades from sight'

I know how
you'll answer
'we are so lightly here,
It is in love that we are made,
in love we disappear'

too wise or
too simple
it's either black or white
unhealed, I'll tear at stitches
bleed out this fatal life

remember
years later
onto those soft lit eyes
your warm belly fluttered
in a melody of sighs
then drowsy, low rain
fell there so we'd float
and drift through the desert
in a little rowboat.