An Anatomy of Love:To a NurseDawn comes to where your solid throat and jaw Lie cupped in fingers not distracted by This wedding ring, and where your liquid eye (Behind its frail, fringed lid) twitches in awe Of nightmare scenes made worse by being vague. You moan, and tremors from your voice pass through The golden band, through palm and vein on to My heart where love, as strong as quakes or plague, Has lain in wait to meet these cruel dreams And crush them, kill them with the fevered power That lurks in lovers’ hands because they scour The world with hope wherever sunrise gleams. Sleep on, my love, and let my skin and wrists Soak up and remedy the poisoned mists. Phenomenal |
A kiss is more than lips, spit, tongues, and teeth
Luxuriating in a bedroom’s heat,
Exploring to blue veins and nerves beneath
Conventions recognized by skin. The beat—
Against the ribcage of each chest—of hearts
Notifying arteries and fate that
Devotion will surge forth, transforms our parts
(Played out before we met in scenes like flat
Hinterlands) and irrigates our lives with
Impunity that springs from love. A kiss
Lifts nestles souls to where tomorrow’s myth
Laughs passionately at the past and this
Incites a joy, eloquent as if white
Phosphorescent blood filled our mouths at night.
Cranberries and Citrus Leaves
We left the lees and somewhat more of wine,
A red reminder in the bottle’s green,
Then turned to music, trying to refine
The aftermath of feasting to a scene
Far removed from food as the melodies
That spiced the room, ignoring body needs
(Since meat and drink had sated most of these).
Most? No. I see your lower lip. It breeds
A red reminder of necessities
That can’t be bottled up—or satisfied.
We drink again, this time at mouths which seize
A meal of flesh and fluid long denied.
Though staling wine sits on my counter still
In green-fresh memories I retain the thrill.