on our bodies, yielding us to form; first shadowed angles,
the berried tip of your left breast quick to sip warmth
from the light. My in/drawn breath is both desire
and awe; how this break/able body of yours can hold all
of mine, bucking right back, demanding more, is a miracle
– as is this slow awakening of my flesh, mimicking sunrise.
Waking you is my temptation, but the smile that plays
on your sleeping face is my vanity a/live; I will not kill
it. Instead I muse on the subtle/ties of love; how, to reach
ecstasy, I must be weak for you, let you guide me
as I guide you, no egos fingering the edges of our frailty.
I remember your eyes holding mine, our laughter manic,
nothing between us, knowing how well we fit, how all
our migrations have led to this moment. We spare no energy
for questions, the kind the world’s eyes throw at us
the same way the morning/light separates us into sable/sand.
Contiguity
Separation is a seven-minute walk
taken together, one train stop alone,
followed by another train and an hour’s flight
– three hours if you count the formalities
at the airport: the stripping of layers,
a life exposed to x-rays, picking up after.
But it is also walkable miles, days
of silence and three months before
we will be together again. And these metrics,
distance and time, cannot unravel the hours of
your voice’s life in my ears, the space the warm
earth essence of you takes up in my nostrils, why
my body in sleep makes space for you
even when my arms can’t cradle your flesh.
Travelling Solo
Coded in smiles and that buzz
we share in the grip of one-
of-a-kind books, paintings, songs...
is a key we both know – one
we build charged chords of joy from,
transpose, dragging 7th notes across days
twisting distortions into possibility.
We’re on a stage and distance is the noise
at the bar – we play harder to rise
above it. The need to make a living
switches tones between major&minor
but we solo our way back to origin ♩
it’s the way we write and don’t ♪ it’s how
we kiss instantly or hover in hunger – pine ♪
the way, with knowing smiles, we tangle
like some fantasy found in the spine
of a book, two cinnabar shades snug
in the heart of a painting, phrases that
overlap in a song that repeats like a love
supreme, a love supreme ♪ it’s that
way that you hold me ♪ the way we
hold we ♪ the way you hold hold me
like I’m leaving the melody, knowing
I’m coming back, but still... but still...
Blowing Smoke
for the curve of dismounts
o
She lifts her head to gift the stars white
smoke and my lips are drawn to the floral
arch of her neck, inching higher, the swirl
her fragrant exhalations make becoming night:
breath to air, dust to dust – we are mortals
drenched in a hummingbird sensation of time.
oo
I have known moments like this; my naked torso
brown as the bark of the mango tree I’ve mounted,
its leaves camouflage while I watch my playmates
seeking me, excitement choking me the same way
her moving fingers make my breath hover. She catches
me in the corner of her eye, my lips tremble on her
skin before the giggle becomes sound: lightning to thunder.
ooo
Sometimes I was found: some girl or boy throwing stones,
breaking the amnios of leaves that protected me – but most
times I just got tired of waiting and shimmied down. Love
is a little like that; the playmates plentiful as pollen grains
yet only a few bursting beyond the red bubble of lust
to the heart, the after-giggle, where the smoke rings go.
How I Know
“I smile a little more than I did before...
That’s how I know love.” – The RH Factor
Some memory of darkness; soft expanses
of ebony – and flesh that turned liquid
on my tongue, in the clasp of infant gums.
A body that moved to soothe me, a body
with shoulders angled to support leaning.
Notes hidden like silverfish in the creases
of my books, six-year-old fingers turning
care-perfect Ds, surprise declarations that drop
out on stages, reminding me that I’ve birthed
a girl with heart, a child who knows healing.
The smell of almond and Shea butter in the hair
of an embrace, the sound of trains passing, a glut
of air as tunnels fill with weight, slow breath
as I try to hold a moment that feels like one
that shouldn’t pass. We’re skin to skin at the cheek.
A boy’s smile that emerges as his mother’s
door closes, his hands reaching for the learned angle
of my shoulders, the circumference of my neck
soon in the clasp of his thighs, monkey bar antics
fading as a girl warms my cheek with her small hand.
This is how my dad felt, perhaps. All I remember is fleeting
but I recall the scratch of a pin on shellac, the wound
of Mahalia’s voice rising to fill a house, the weight
of his arm around my neck, the whisper of a smile
moving the wood of his skin, his voice saying, Listen.
In the poetry section of a bookshop, my hand in the crease
of an anthology of Brazilian poets, lost in the black joy
of word after apt word, I lift my eyes and see the woman
who said yes to dinner. She moves and my mouth is wide:
between us, a field of teeth straining to do more than just smile.
Of Sides
Love for you is
what you have
witnessed: doing
something you hate,
proof of sacrifice.
Love weighed in debts:
a chorus of chores.
Love for me is what
I know: loving
whatever i’m doing
because it is done
for love, done with
song, skip in the heart,
the task forgotten.
Every day you smile
less; my smile becomes
wider. To onlookers it seems
I am consuming you.
I am the one who is
wronged, but love is
a cushion of many sides.
Locking Doors
(for Teacher & the Sundance Kid)
To free the L from its metal perch, slide
the torpedo of its head into place, locking
the front door – to check the fires of the gas
stove do not still burn... He remembers it’s night
and darkness brings duties. He holds your hand
guides you to the bathroom, turns on the light,
turns away before you turn on him, as you do
sometimes when the cache of your memories reset
making him a stranger. He can recall Grand National
winners’ names for the
