--WHY HAS THE MUSIC STOPPED?

Higher Ground

And since we are speaking of love stories, notice that the alligators decimated dessert and have tossed their bloody napkins in the swamp where we used to swim.

Yesterday you waltzed while I walked deadbolt into traffic.  You spoke ekphrasis, said, “The Pope plays poker with Jesus, but neither of them ever wins.”  There was a grin stuck between your teeth, another victory lap glistening on your lips.

The landlord filled out faulty tax returns while every squirrel spun, squealing, high on splinters.

At some point, your new boyfriend undid his tool belt on your chest and performed an emergency hat trick.

I guess that makes him heroic. 

Me, I’m still lying in the crosswalk, singing songs without a chorus, still looking for the right key, the road to higher ground.

--ALL THOSE MOMENTS, BOTTLED UP IN WONDER

Kisses

Here is my kiss for you,

untethered, unmasked,

and unbound. 

Don’t say a word. 

Make love to me

with your eyes. 

Let them stagger and bounce

against the faint night light and

I will tell you every secret

you’ve ever asked about. 

It’s time.

My tongue is the most

honest part of me tonight,

the only virgin in this poem,

the one I’ve always wanted to write.

Be rough as you like,

but Shush,

don’t speak, please.

Those butterflies in your hair

are on alert, attentive, and chromatic,

listening for time to end.

I bend into your soul

with the next kiss

and it’s a perfect fit,

wet sand adhering

like unbreakable glass.

You tap messages through

your pelvis, sonnets you compose

with your pulse and uncomposed marrow.

When my kiss reaches your absolute center,

in that locked box near

the back of your throat,

it’s a requisite penetration and

another kind of parting altogether—

lips,

legs,

heart,

eternity,

everything splayed open

yet permanently sealed by

the kiss that keeps on kissing

because it knows no other way.

--IT’S A BITTERSWEET SYMPHONY OF LIFE

                                              The Clearing

And isn’t it all so easy, everything?  How to trap a moth?  A bear?  How to shoot the stunned deer working its jaws in the clearing?  How to skin the carcass?  Flay the steaming meat?  Call it recreational?  Mount the head on the dining room wall?  Note the width of its antlers and the way its glass eyes stare back unblinking, agreeable now, wishing they could speak, render you correct and say, Yes, you are right again.  Everything is so easy.