Where have you gone?

Your silhouette left a black glove behind on the train

disembarked solo, fled into botched dusk, carved hours

turning in velvet, wet fingers playing rivers, oceans

I searched, I rent my skin, down on my knees, squinted into darkness

when I lay alone in bed I roved my body to find—

that kiss bestowed, the wonderment—once a girl, turning woman

flowering into you nelumbo nucifera from the family nymphaeaceae

—flooded sediment, containing seed, broken open

glimmering, pearlescent, the pulsing urge: Swallow

you bequeathed me joy with the tip of your rummaging tongue

a thousand petalled lotuses, sacred beneath you: Morphine

I live nothing without you, broken fouettés— disarticulated—no part of me burns

I am cold volcano, dormant pitch holding no sway

a killing stone, widow-maker—suppressing and exhibiting.

Clocks lose their manic-depressive hands, time banished, parched by drought

ruined purpose, consuming memories the way hours work backward;

in recollection, you touch me, I am awakened, the bronze movement of us

smooth against wood, etched over and over, gold leaf paint

fitted into thin groove, you lend me breath, parsed ecstasies

your mouth the furnace, I erupt, we writhe entwined—

supple in formation, infinitum love, wrought tender

I say no, you hold me tightly, until no, no, no— le lit défait

perpetual shape of us—never separate—stop—more

pain is the pinch of your mouth wanting —

joy—the burst of a hundred spent muscles dissolving

fir trees shut from light, stir redolent, in cloying air

the smell of balsam and resin, your belly warm and soft

stillness of pain pressed flat and quiet, we stir—

perpetual—memoir, ink, idol

rise, in search of lost time.

Where have you gone?

(*à la recherche du temps perdu, ‘In Search of Lost Time’ first coined by Marcel Proust).

4 Replies to “à la recherche du temps perdu*”

  1. Oh, the sensory symphony… I would eat this in place of a madeleine anyday. 💜

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