waves of water echoing
cartoons onto the sky,
and the clouds know i've tried to reach you,
the stars have heard me shout your name,
infinity has felt me turning time's pages,
reading histories, writing the reasons why
you fill me so full but have left me so
endlessly empty, drawing these pretty pictures
on the walls of twilight where every mark
casts an echo into the past,
like a love note rolled into a bottle,
floating to a distant planet
139
the wind is cruel in winter, blowing its
frigid breath over naked trees, but, in april,
when the leaves are collected again, the
wind whispers the secrets of our love,
and the trees perform some elaborate fan
dance to expose yesterday's skin where
words were once so lush that kisses tripped
from our sour, hopeful mouths,
and our youthful eyes saw the world as
some happenstance place, and the leaves
laughed at our ecstasy, shaking with
anticipation, humming some splendid
song that i've since forgotten but can still
hear when i sleep, when those spring night
breezes breathe over the surface of all those
delicate dancing words we so softly smeared
on the forever skin of spring
140
she hides in the severe morning shadows,
her shape—as tender as the night—softly
glows in the shade, letting the better, warmer
breezes of dawn place its fingers on my
lips, wash my face with the keep-quiets
and promises of her sunshiniest kisses,
and when she emerges, like a bloom
from a barely breathing bud of waiting,
she'll peel open and taste my light, drink
my air all day long and then hide again in
the blue light of a hubris moon
141
as we tangle over a heartbreak that still
breathes inside us and peer up at the
same blue sky on long, warm days and
reflect, i will paint memories on your wings
with the colors of my kisses, i will string
stanzas together from collections of your
words, plant seeds from my long ago
thoughts and wait for the flowers that
remind me how your hands could draw
a shape around the world that would feed
me a thousand forevers, bathing in the light
of your splendid smile, sunlight stretching
around your kiss-stained skin
142
she hides in a sound my heart makes
before sleep, a song spinning toward
a dream, something falling, like love,
darkness toward endlessly imaginary
waters,
shimmering-shimmering,
shim-shim-shimmering toward a guess
of a shine—of somewhere a kiss waiting
in the black softness of a sound i've hidden
in her heart, her slippery sleep of a heart
143
your body is small and tight,
wrapped in that little floral dress,
and your skin is so young,
your movements so soft with femininity
that you walk with a dancer's grace,
leaving an echo of pressed piano keys
in the wake behind your tantalicious
trail of curves,
and when your weight falls
against my weight,
and i taste your mouth,
feel your breath on my face,
your song crescendos and crashes
like a wonderful wave against my kiss,
and i sink deep into your melody,
follow its flow back to the source of love,
where truth hides all meaning in our music,
melts us over eternity water
144
you are the shimmer and the shine
when i stare off into distant waters,
your silhouette is the sky bending out
over the horizon,
you are the sound of a thousand whispers
washing ashore, each telling me a different
way to remember the light you've planted
in me—the white glow of life that breathes
even as the sun sets,
and all that's left are the water's secrets,
drawing poems in my ears the shape of
your brilliant body, crashing and crawling
over endlessly rolling waves
145
i've drawn the line from your neck to
your shoulder countless times, trying
to get the swoop just right, not settling
for anything but the perfect bend—softly
apparent—but it's impossible to get the
shape just so,
and if my pencil drops to your slender
arm, tries to mimic the wispy shout of
your marvelous wrist, then i am squarely
aware of the ineptitude of art,
and if i(and i will) attempt to etch your
hip—oh, that glorious S from your stomach
to your thigh—i'll retire my instrument or
draw and erase, draw and erase for the rest
of my days,
but i'll still enjoy every wonderful second
of it, pushing at the limits of man's work,
marveling at your limitless loveliness
146
she's off somewhere slumming with
nowhere's angels, planting kisses and
clues in the conniving clouds, dancing
above the rain, dropping pieces of
poems to hide in the puddles,
and when i look, peer into the drizzle
of her disturbed water, i catch glimpses
of her wings lightly treading over the
surface of the sky, planting seeds
from my heart into the stars for
flowers to keep the angels busy
when winter washes all the beauty
from the heavens of our memory
147
a curtain of flowers
lays over your legs,
a whisper of petals
that separates us,
a veil of pastels
pressing its soft,
pretty fingers
into my imagination,
and a game of love-me-nots
is massaged into my mind
as your breath eases ever-nearer,
and something new,
a fluttering in the heart,
grows within me
and wants for your kiss,
waits for your sweet, fragrant stems
to wind elegantly around me,
keeping me close for all the reasons
the flowers need the rain
148
the music between us is moody
and swells beneath our feet,
spurs us forward with its silver
singing,
and a dance vibrates across the floor,
you slowly smile,
lift your skirt up to expose some thigh,
and i float across the stirs of sound,
wrap myself around you,
matriculate with your melody,
and let the desire sway us
across this sea of song,
memorizing the feel of your breasts
rising and falling against my chest,
feeling the tornado of your hips
splashing into me,
swirling me deeper into your sinful soup,
so tender and softly sweet
149
you pull and twist your flaxen wisps of hair
like precious yellow petals from the center of
your spotlight heart,
and it makes the sun appear to shine from inside
—not outside—the planet of light that breathes
when you breathe
and you breed bliss on days of overcast skies,
bend night's stars into day and ply your skillful
fingers in all the right places to send lights to my
paper heart, planting fires and poems across my
inky skin
150
the romance in a painting of her
will remain vibrant and full of the
flowers of our youth long after the
dust settles on our lonely bones
the stillness of a sculpture will hold
the breath of our whispers, the prints
of our frenzied fingers, after thousands
of seasons have succumbed to sleep
the petals of our poems will hold firm
to love's last flower, try to wrap tight
around the memory of your hair playing
music on my heart, even after the seas
have risen to wash away all the words
151
i've composed a thousand quiet letters,
crawled over every word, held them all
in my hands like beautiful worms,
squirmingsquirming with the nervous
energy of secrets trying to find their way
home to you
i've hurled countless wishes across the
water like stones skipping across the oceans
you've built in my heart, causing tsunamis
of enormous wants to rise on the other side
of the planet, waves written in your name,
poems waiting for you in hesitation sand
152
she was enveloped by lace at her birth,
grew skillfully into the silk of her skin
as if she never met a growing pain,
and she walks with the grace of water slowly
rolling down the slightest, slipperiest slopes,
and she smells like the sweetest flowers—
not too overpowering, but subtle with tinges
of never-enoughs
and she carries sunshine in her mouth, warm
and morning dampened, waiting to share her
dewy lips with kisses so quiet that when they
crack open, the only sound is gold and happiness,
pure and brightly shining like the banging of
buddha's bells
153
she wears her insecurities on her shoulders
like little lace curtains of timidity across the
nape of her neck, and her arms rest across
her chest, shielding her light from infecting the
world, afraid of what her shining might inflict,
but when she crashes into kisses, when those
arms open up and she lets the light out, the
curtains are lifted—fall to the floor
and she is a thousand summer memories pouring
forth over these lips, reviving all those