the valley below

i. lazy lying

O love, and your elliptical necessity
O body, where my hand should or shouldn’t be
O pain, incongruous with poetry
O tease, who didn’t even taste her vegan sushi

and can’t you read your working girl is wired
how thick her lines, how dense the verbal flex
through tissue skin she moves for you like fire
if beggars reach beyond the solar plex

or if you crowny thorn her goldylocks
then she could drag your cross by silken hem
mantic romantic how you palmed her wrist
and when you nearly slid it in, sweet bitter

O yes, no, neither, both, if irony
is logic how she leaves the dead country
she only wants to be with you, for you, baby
and how you need it, and how your penstrokes ask for it

darling prevarication; but your him-hands
give quaking earth, they land so serious
and lazy lying on your big brass bed, and curious
you have her on her back, hand where you said

her wears a ring to be transcendent lay
for texture fascinates her fingertips
down to the valley, where she gives it all away
hits harder when the moon falls on a Saturday

//

ii. the corsage

my pulse is narrowing and turns the sky
around this death, heart over air, to fly
so cradled night, my infant, catching, fell
for contact, striking, stroke indelible

a wrist, a pin, the pale stem of a rose
her point, round by my red hand and my right
her subtle bite of blood at ivory jaw
our trinity of sunbeam into sleep

but here, i kiss the center, mouth for eye
i taste it, as i take contested breath
i turn it, making weighted what was white
i let it fly, and earth will finish the matter

//

iii. air terjun

on this island, there are many waterfalls
come visit; then your tree trunk thighs will tremble
and collapse from the steep trail of descent
we seek her from the bottom, not the top

don’t think about the arduous way back up
the rising hell, and you will ache tomorrow
but the future needs to take care of itself
not like some infernal baby, wailing

our path is not yet ruined by the trash
yet discarded plastic has determined us
our dirty fingernails pry it out and carry
made little masters of unending refuse

shaded by foliage as we approach
the whiteout sound echoes off slippery slopes
of mud-washed stone, grip held by cliffside roots
and every footstep is precarious

place focus, eyes on feet and hands on limb
the green ravine her delving argument
into this living hollow of the land
the cave erasing history of water

to where her falling flight consumes the air
by roiling pool, our temporary here
our momentary test, like ice for legs
the same knees wobble forth to undergo her

into the storm, the fight white vertical
her standing soaking mountain-height of light
defeats the gaze, sheer upright counter-thirst
and roaring riddle; if you reach your arms to touch her

her closer is the punishment of rain
she smacks your skull and plasters down your hair
her current pummeling your blinded form
her action belongs to nobody

but how she caught my breath and draws me near
and how much love precipitous you take
and how her emptying invokes my ghost interior
and how i fail again, her force compelling my return

//

for Faded Love