The moon was the sign
her lover had sent of his arrival
Sand knew her wondrous Wave would follow
in the distance, he rose, carefree
an adolescent charm he knew she couldn't resist

His eyes sparkled at her
his smile was chicane and she knew it
she loved him and waited for him
every night, with her velvety white body lying, still
glowing like tiny pearls, shimmering

He gently brushed her, teased her
she moved closer to him with a gasp
every second of wait felt like forever
she wanted to be completely immersed
in his elemental being, and become him

He couldn't resist her incandescence any more
their waltz began in the moon's silky illume
He came to her with all emotions overcome
she gave herself completely, undone
to his ego, to his raw curvaceous sensuality

He defiled every particle of her being
till she gushed in agony
she knew him, only him, his heaving body
her sweaty self, in denial of the rising light
she lived only then, and every single night

He moved forth and back, through the night
their dance divine, her purity blinding
their distance nada, their souls combined
she moaned with pleasure, her sound chimed
till the horizon to him, she was beauty defined

Her body diddered, he felt her shiver
He lay beside till dawn broke his dream
She suspired as he turned his eyes away
but she knew, that night he would return
one sighing glance and he surrendered to the ocean

Their dance would continue till eternity.

Impressive in his houndstooth coat,
he is noticeably provoked
by crimes against Wallace Stevens.

Beneath his office window
a student meandering to class
takes a twig
of boxwood in his grasp and,
without a moment's thought,
casually plucks it off.

Seizing upon an epiphany,
(or moment of regret)
the Professor turned and said to me:
“We shall all be plucked in time,
or driven down beneath the tread
of farmer feet, in mud as red
and thick as congealing blood!
Driven down like grain
by men with callused hands.”

The world's weight now suspired,
he turned his gaze
to the walkways below,
signalling, I surmised, that I should go.

Death,
I had to concede
is an undignified affair:
random and incoherent in its sweep.
We are naked, riven,
utterly alone, and strewn,
once reaped,
into the soil that was our home.

But not the tall, brown men
of the whispering halls,
where fates are drawn and snipped,
(where capacious noses lightly drip)—
they are plucked with the tenderness of frost,
tucked into filing drawers,
and lost.

There is something about churches—
the sanctuary filling slowly,
brass ***** pipes arrayed like halberds
in a medieval arsenal,
stooped ushers handing out programs
as the congregation
accumulates softly
like snow.

And the pulpit—like a queen
in a hive of wooden pews
all of polished walnut,
stands hushed and expectant.

(I know within that pulpit
there is a place to put cough drops,
a legal pad, second pair of glasses.)

Sanctuaries have a peculiar smell,
redolent of potted lilies,
Youth Dew perfume,
aging hymnals,
the suspired breath
of five hundred faithful
lifting their voices to that soaring
Byzantine dome.

I was glad for your presence that day,
the sound of your marvelous
voice, the warm sense
of your shoulder next to mine.
You cradled a hymnal
benevolently in your hand
as though you were baptizing a child.

"Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!"

I sang more loudly, I suppose,
for gratitude that you were with me.
I held my hymnal with more care,
sang and looked up more hopefully
to that pulpit than I might otherwise
have done on any given Easter.
I prayed more ardently for good things to happen,
thought more kindly of the man
beside me who wouldn’t make room
when we three entered the pew
but stared blandly ahead as if
waiting for an opera to begin.

When the minister spread his arms
in benediction and bade us all go in peace,
we stayed to hear the postlude
and watch the Easter crowd
wind its way to the narthex
and spill out into the boisterous
parade on Fifth Avenue.

I sat there and listened with you
as the organist played his sonorous farewell.
When I was a boy sitting next to you in church,
you might gently pat my thigh
when the organist’s final note
passed through the sanctuary
like a great bird in flight.
You would smile as if to say,
“You made it through the whole service!”

On this Easter, when the hymn began,
and the mighty ***** notes swelled around us
like God’s own voice in song,
it was the thought of your shoulder near mine,
your hands upon the pew,
that halted my singing for a moment,
to let a silent bolt of longing
pass through me
like a solitary dog crossing a road.
Then it was gone, the thought,
but so, too, was your palpable nearness,
the idea of your voice
ringing through the church
like a celebration.