winter love

your kisses were so gentle

that I mistook them

for the snow falling softly,

decorating the branches.

I mistook your touch for the wind

moving through the bare trees.

you were the winter itself

stealing upon me.

how restful it is,

to be in your arms.

how calm it is

like stone.

your heart

is a pale moon.

you aren’t afraid

of the night pressing

on our skin

of silent fields.

you brought me the love

that makes spring possible.

let me confess

let me confess

my humble love

grown of earth

no flower

more practical sustenance

a spear of corn

no red color

(except at the root)

pale yellow

like butter

kernels pressed

tight together, like

baby’s toes

slender body

wrapped in

translucent silk

paper husk

let me confess

my humble love

let me nourish you

like all good things

born green

born of earth

the flight

I made my bed beside the railroad tracks

laying down as the deer

in their wild and grassy places

and folded my hands

as if in prayer.

I made my bed beside the white clay road

banished from your call

as lost as any dog.

who can count the ways

I was unmade that night?

still the wheels of the road

rumbled close

always turning

like mother to child.

the train cried.

I felt its vibration in the earth.

it was no more than

the nighthawks passing over me,

like smoke rising.

the lights of the cars on the highway

to my drowning eyes

seemed globes – spirits

rising to heaven

wait, I cried - wait

can you blame me?

there was nothing left of me but tears

but words whispered in prayer.

the price

others may write about eyes

about glances

what would I know of this?

-my sight extinguished at his touch

his hair running though my hand like water,

his lips like currents

pulling me deeper

drowning me in his breath.

in the morning – departing

buttoning clothes

like children gathering slippery stones

from the riverbank,

shoving sandy, never clean feet into shoes,

trembling, suddenly cold.

 I thought I knew what this would cost me

- I should have known what this would cost me.

I should have known

love isn’t a price you pay only once.

radiant star

they say we are made of earth.

this must be true, because I crumble at your touch.

like dust I scatter on your breath.

they say we are made in the same vein as the stars.

they are our ancestors perched above us,

each in its own silver chair.

this too must be true.

when you hold me close

our hearts together feel composed entirely of light

radiating from your body to mine.

we are nothing more than atoms transmitted

-the sound of a chord being struck.

they say we are immortal beings

each of us possessed of a soul.

how could we not?

the universe is infinite

-that truest note escaping us-

how could we ever stop traveling across it?

the kiss

your kiss is like a torn cloth

it fits against the sky like a church spire

alone in a prairie of winter.

your touch runs like a furrowed field,

line beside line, unbroken

if there had been a moment

for breathing,

for asking,

I would have told you, love

that I’d pay any price

-my heart knows its color

my blood, my being

knows its name.

the return

kiss me, love, and then return
-while you are gone my heart will be
like a furrowed field in winter
dusted in snow
lines of black
lines of white.
kiss me, love, and then return
-until you do, everything will be
as if only in passing,
flocks of birds alighting on a shorn field
for a moment a seed,
a drink, rest
then a cloud ever changing, ever migrating
bird by bird a whole, falling apart.
a kiss my love
-then while you are gone
I’ll imagine only your sweet return.