Amidst worry, distraction, hunger, noise,
there is the brand, the scorch of you
sealing me in wax
pressing me to Florentine paper
sending me by leathered mail
with a longing as woven
as pulp that becomes a letter
writing out felted words
my throat cannot swallow.
The world is burning, in once-removed chaos
I find an unsteady peace, imagining us.
Everything is flammable, people smite each other
with little tools and heavy words
we forget our humanity often
we are caught with our pants down
jacking off to lies & hate in little jars
sometimes it seems the world would fair
better without our penchant for harm
but we subsist, in fragments, shards, pieces
of goodness separated and flung apart.
I should be considering the state of the planet
why it’s searing in October, why people
shoot someone for the color of their skin, how
evil can stand in White Houses and other
necessary questions …
but for this cupped moment, I am idle in my desire to save
not a lack of caring, but rather
the need to step outside the fray and
stand in the rain with you .
The rain here is warm, before we met
I did not know rain could be warm
I lived in a concrete trap with sad faced
buildings that many would give their eye
teeth for and I wished passionately, to escape
from
there was no softness in the city of my birth
no reduction of clamor
we spun like dervish on a wheel
forgetful of what mattered in the perpetual lean
to survive
I am here with you now, although
we are often not together, in my etched soul
you hold me every night and the candle
I placed in my window does not go out
for it burns eternal.
A song will reduce me to tears, driving wet
cheeked and aching for your touch, the surround
of your movement against me, a kiss that consumes
my cold center, turns me to the moon
shining and nude.
We are shimmering fish beneath dark water, finding our way
with our mouths, our fingers, the brail of need
containing sea pearls ready to sacrifice their shell
only you can lift me away from
the sorrows of the world and our many
pitted attempts to remedy what seems to be
our nature
only you can run yourself down my stomach
and opening me like a fan, find within, my
raw chorus
only you, with your pitch eyes and raven heart
can cause me to tumble, weightless over white cliffs
into our own private film
playing the days of our lives, for an empty house
the tick of our time, slowing now.
I should clean my teeth, brush my hair, push my
cuticles back and cross my legs in public, but for
the need to wear no hose, and driving 70mph down
empty streets, push you into me, finding
piano keys beneath our lilting surface.
By day I am a plain-faced woman with
ill-fitting bra and the marks of time sponged
on my face like imprints from a wild cat
who walked over me once, twice, forever
as you pull me from the world with your
electricity and I urge you
implore
to not
to never
look back.
