The Lineaments
Slick as a slide I go down your long hair
pausing only to fall into your eyes,
eyes like clear oceans holding all I need,
to feel the gentle flick of your eyelids' brush
to measure your tiny mouth with my tongue
to catch the azure perfume of your neck.
Over and under we flow one body
running from myself, running from yourself,
running in place, running up a mountain,
all the while the light in our eyes strengthens,
blinding, teasing, withholding, entangling,
A light and a fire and a more than joy.
Then suddenly you not you, suddenly home,
suddenly a reason beyond any reason.
Unaccountable
The violet light of an evening sky
dims to a dark that lays hold of the earth
like a tiger at rest playing with its prey.
There is no pity in this, no compassion,
but also no malice, no intention.
It is but the way of things to just be.
And though we may gather our statistics,
they matter less than we think or we want.
Here and there the stars break through the deep smog.
Now that I am old enough no longer
to count the stars, I may perhaps see them
for the first time, unencumbered by hope
or fear or the relentless ambitions
of someone still becoming, someone still to be.
Denuded
At a certain point, it's no longer
about dead bodies. Dead bodies
dissolve back into the ground.
At a certain point, it's not even
about all the promises made
you didn't keep. No one living cares.
Days go by and the vise on your head
tightens. Gray sunlight intrudes.
Like it or not. You still live.
At a certain point, you realize it:
the snail with the broken shell
still remembers how to crawl.
