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

Body- Held Secrets

I.

I am a secret,
           sealed in skin, 
kept
even from myself.
            Fragment.
Section of a story.
Mystery of a manifold. 
Known only in tidbits
            traveling
like gossip on the lips of women.  Related.
Relished.  Narrated
like old news made new
                  with the retelling. 
Retold
with occasional omission
                  or embellishment. 
Hoarded.  Mess of fact and fiction
upon arrival. 

At times, I am sedulous in my search
for self, sorting
through, separating
whites and colors, or hungry
for more, I cup my ear to glass to soul-door, hoping
to hear what my grownup self might know. 
And, too,
         there are times I turn away,
tired of trivialities,
tired of teleology,
the bother
of knowledge.

I am mere whisper.
Breathed, hushed in the dark. 
Created
        unfinished,
            forming still.  A season –
the blush of fall leaves rustling
under feet or the blossom springing up
pink quick just before summer.
Held by space and time by body
feigning reality. 
Flesh of fiction. 

           And the earth
seems to be more than landscape,
rather memoryscape,
though I can’t recall if this is paradise
or hell. My body
             bridges the lacuna
             between the tangible
and the abstract, refusing
to follow rules of unities. 
My body both belongs
and aches for another home, so I search
the deep, attempting to unravel
                     mysteries
engrafted in my DNA.
I am skin, bones, guts
covering
                    truth
so I creep
cautiously down
to core to excavate whatever’s pure. 
This interfusion of flesh
and soul
       seems so accidental. 
                                    I am in touch,
                                    out of touch,
more than what is seen, seduced
into disbelief by mirror’s reflection
and my own movement. 

II.

My body with its sudden aching
rebels like the feverish child
sent straight to bed,
the child who still wants to play

The day stolen by the sway of illness,
this lassitude, unallayed

The legs on strike so confined and laying stretched, my limbs sink into the sheets

This pain more acute when still. 

Tossing,
turning, left, right, I settle on my back,
hands clasped at chest like death pose and I begin
to pray

First, the furious bargaining that accompanies grief….

Then, finally, in acceptance, abandonment to the discomfort,
the self-admission with some small amount of shame
that this is what it takes to slow me, to draw me
           in
and out.

I cease fighting and the near constant percussion
in the background of this house seems to lower as the paradox
of a newfound, familiar gratitude rocks me
into an almost sleep
where my sight is sharper than when awake
and where when weak, He is strong and I or He prays.

I’ve laid down my one expectant request:  I will still,
here, as long as necessary, only rising when I’m certain
the hour’s purpose has been fulfilled but, Lord, when
I reenter space and time, I must be returned to form,
if only  for remainder of today.

So now, it’s just mostly names, uttered, silent, as I’m reminded
of who but not necessarily what and when my eyes open,
I know what I don’t know, that I’m a little more whole when broken. 
That I’m unfolding and that search for self is only realized in abandonment
of self. 

Only when I am quieted by strain
can I most fully realize
that beyond all
this exists a full reality.

These are mere whispers heard in the hush of light and heaven is closer,
nearer than I fathomed prior.  The earth is just a dreamscape,
His body bridging gap between abstraction and understanding
and his reflection is moving through me.

The Sunday Whirl