Contagium… eyes across my skin,
Contagio risus
Your lips… cover miles
Infect and beguile,
dizzy and
whoa,
the trip and the fall,
into you…
this fever
Contagio
this touch
When I used to love the rain,
I found work as an umbrella salesman
When I loved the sun,
shade became my shelter
The wind caressed me,
so I locked my windows and sealed my drafts
I would become numb to it,
move my boat from following seas and into rocky coves
Stone shelter
I would hew it and build it, shoulder it and groan under it,
shift and shift, seal off the cracks
where the light gets in
where the wind tries to touch me
the rain to wash me
I am dirty
I am cold
I am still
Where love cannot find me,
where sleep never ends
Until some strange foreign actor
tilts their spade the ground
shifts weight, cracks seals
And orders me up, out of the dominion,
into a day that shifts from sun, to rain, wind, back and forth,
into a rollicking ride of heat, sweat, cries,
into the fear again, facing into storms
and following winds
Husbands
with children
are sherpa
lost in a blizzard
on slippery ice
where the air is thin
blood vessels leak
and ghosts begin to beckon
Sinuous, curving neck,
full breast,
long legs that
reach into
the harbor’s edge
Obsidian eyes
bottomless, a tunnel without end
seeking
Along a rocky shore,
the slow filling harbor
a mirror capturing grace,
clouds doubled,
scudding across a fecund sea
As you strike, down,
rippling the mirror,
your body shooting forward,
head buried in the sea and the sky,
You have caught prey
tight with your mouth,
Trapped, engulfed
their shaking body now raised,
glistening under a hot Maine sun,
consumed
consumed
consumed.
A path
with people passing
just there, but I cannot hear, I can only
fall into us
And your eyes
are lanterns, guiding me,
beckoning, and I follow,
fall into us
Your kisses
are water moving down my heated skin,
your lips, curl, encompass, your fingers wrapping, as I moan,
fall into us
The first kiss,
and you as a conductor, your fingers pulling at mine,
onto the train and into the night,
curving over mountains, through tunnels
Steam turning electric,
currents passing through me, burning and blinding
your fingers curled in mine,
a journey without end
The dancer
and the piano,
My fingers on the keys
her legs
scissoring
across polished wooden flooring,
click clack of stabbing, rhythmic heels
reflection up her body:
the once youthful legs,
spinning skirt
blood red dress,
bare arms spread wide
supporting stony face,
dark hair pulled tight
she pivots, struts, strides
to the beat I try to pull back, but…
fingers keying, hammering
strings one by one, faster
slower
(it ain’t my beat at all, after all)
driven by the click clack,
matching the stride, note to note
at first, her heels and my fingers
explode apart, a door opens
and she tangos out, alone
(as always, and better for it)
into dark streets, her own beat
as I break skin on keys,
smear blood in some desperate sacrifice
banging harder, moaning now, lights flickering out
in this room I love
