Figure of a Man

My husband whose speech is suave,
            but only for me
Whose heart is worn upon his sleeve
Whose hair is the dark of a starless night
Whose hair is soft as a kitten’s fur
Whose skin is smooth anointing oil
Whose words make gentle waves
I wallow in like at a lazy river
at a water park, like a hippo
in a mud bath, like in riches
Whose words are filling like the cream
of breakfast pastries, sweet
         and delicious
Whose teeth are white and flashy
precious pearls
The teeth of an actor
in a toothpaste commercial
Whose tongue is an orphaned child begging,
            tugging
            the heart
strings
My husband whose tongue is the monsoon
wind bringing rain to the desert
And is the cherry topping the whipped cream
topping the ice cream sundae
Whose eyelids are as innocent as a swallow’s
My husband whose feet are the soft tread
of an approaching cat
My husband whose eyebrows are sepals
hooding
his soul,
enveloping developing buds of roses
My husband whose grin crinkles the corners
of his eyes like toes curled in
Whose toes are witch fingers
Whose fingers are spades for finding
            fossils
and stunt doubles for tightrope acts
in circus films
My husband with a back that is a field
of stories
That bewitches
My husband whose back rolls
like a centipede’s, like an accordion
Whose shoulders are passwords
                             and secrets
divulged
My husband whose wrists
are the chills in a haunted house
Whose wrists are floorboards creaking
in a house that has held many dreams
My husband whose lips are the memories
brought back from a souvenir
Are a pop song
Whose arms are long branches of a willow
and the arms of tongs willing and able
to withstand heat
Whose chest is a down pillow
to rest my head upon when sleeping
Whose falling and rising motions are like
a tide at swell
My husband whose stomach is stirred
by hunger for me
With lips that are the last bite
of a favorite dessert
Whose soul is a room I make my bed in
My husband with the eyes of a tundra
sunrise glow
My husband whose heart is the tapping
of stones sent
to a window at midnight by a secret courter
And is the rim of the steepest cliff
I’ve stood on, calling out to hear my echo
And is half of mine

Lectulus

In creating, the only hard thing's to begin...
                                                         -James Russell Lowell


You are Adam
        and
I am Eve,
pre-fall
         and so
vigil held in
pre-nostalgia
waned with wick of wariness,
lessening into daybreak's risk,
and light rising, I signed
             the words, I love you,
then spoke them plain
        saying all I never thought
              I would.
Because lathered in your
before and after
kisses,
        somehow
                        what once gushed
syrupy
seems now likely.

So, here I am, in the wiggle room
  of luck,
believing in the blessing,
            given
           not
by choice or virtue,
but won
by fight,
and the danger of practicality,
looming just above-
        ever easing.

I offer to wisdom all previous
grieving,
repossess
    the wonder.
There is suffering
            still to steer,
              I'm sure,
but together
we
row rapids
  of redemption,
        each wave of what
once was
            and
reaching
            graveyard of the end
                             of what
                                  was once
before,
we'll dig up vision's
bones,
breathe bloom
into the stilted mouths of
                         mocking cynics.
We will
           laugh at sighs and stretching
                         silence,
because now,
voice,
legitimized,
and artificial phrases,
yes, sublimest art.
More is more, and I will serve you
happily
       in return for heart,
because you never gave up
                    chase,
                        and catching me,
you held me long in hidden gap,
wove, like craft, a frame of healing,
waited out derangement
            of my feverish cries
                                              and I
survived.

So, now I give my life to you,
                        my love,
undo
softly, gently,
    false covering of figs,
      abandon fear.
I spill more sumptuous
                           than the fruit
                                              I
tempted with, and ask forgiveness.

Press hard your hips to mine,
                  your lips to mine,
and know the way
by memorizing feel of features.
Know me in the dark and light,
                in the cycles
of our hours,
our habits of formation.
Hear me
in our modern.
In
my notes
            slipped into sack lunch
vows I've never uttered.
Keep them close
as you do my body
in between the sheets
         in early morning
segue.
Taste like lasting taffy,
the sweetness of my thoughts,
        watch my fingers spell
                         in lieu of
                             lines
the pretty gathering of sonnets
                  and regard attempts,
however lowly, to call you home.
Eat with me newly granted
knowledge,
and when spent from toil,
return
   to Eden's bed.

The Sunday Whirl

                                         
           

Winter Journey

I came in through the snow, my footsteps quickly fading.
I saw, on my way, that old tree leaning, dusted,
paling, and our initials carved were covered only
barely.
I brushed aside the white so you'd remember.
I listened for the solo note of frost finch floating
                            so I could follow.
                                 I found the door with message
                                              thawing in the dawn
but made it out.  I waited among the elms
         and all of nival ilk.  I waited long
         and worried you were lost.
I should not have left.  I circled the vast
                      and colorless expanse, returned
                      and knocked to no response.  I, then,
with one finger, traced words into the sleek freeze
        on window and left again,
                                      the cold gnathic aching blowing
                                                        as if predicting death.
I could feel your absence.  I let my heart beat widowed,
just to know it.  I turned against
       the wind,
                its blast all that broke the terrifying muteness
                                             of the land.
I needed joy.
I needed you.
I stopped and stood alone
in this somber
        silence
and watched the eerie
powder snow gently take out canvas.
I worried you'd forgotten where we were to meet,
   where I met you last, four seasons past.
I planned calendar year around
                                            return.
I memorized your face, this place, but not your meaning.
I held the heat and lied.  I met you in mess of romance.
I observed your wounds with my hands.  I placed yours
                           where mine were matching.
I came back in winter,
came in pitch black night in bleak of chill,
needing fire.
I will kiss you alive when I find you.
I have arrived.