Muse you are an unwanted thing
coming as moth must be drawn unwillingly
for whom of us longs to be captured by the light
denying us rest?
for in the grey of our self-imposed exile
we know no disturbance
our affection is metered and paid for each day
by a short stack of coins all bronze and safe
securing our space in certain harbor
as little boats will never attempt
glorious journeys
but of course there are those unbidden times
like a storm out of the West devours best intent
cutting down our resistance
stark against your person
if you didn’t do anything but exist
it would still hurt
like beauty can make a man cry
unconsciously we dream of ideals
moving in hymn with that part of us
that can be held to the light and fractured
you know my song
before I know my own
emotion
I see the distance between
a quiet sleep touching you in earnest
and anything real
as colorless as soot belies attempt to rise above
normalcy and quench our longing for
a girl who breaks us into pieces with one movement
unknowing, as free as a child who has grown beautiful
over summer time
unawares of herself
she will always be this way and I didn’t know until I felt
in the pit of my stomach that fizz and fall
down into a place of ache
something as sweet as pain
the desire unrelenting and yet
impossible before it is formed
like a best intention
left like her dress on the floor
as I lift it over her thin arms and watch
the bow she makes with herself
and the reddening of her cheeks when
I demonstrate not all we know we know
surprising even those
who think themselves immune
to oddities and marbles strewn
lifting her into me and beyond where
my tongue and her murmurs hold each other
my eyes close when I see her
beneath me like a sea
nipples pressing insistently against my fingers
and all that she thought
was right
and wrong
for this moment
it doesn’t really count
we are beyond ourselves
her feather weight and my discovered ardor
making champions of hesitation
acrobats in abseiling the curves of her
I would please myself in the pleasure of
her surprised movement, writhing as she danced
inside my mouth clawing in pleasure
every part of her as delicate
as the flower I saw reminding me
how she would surely taste
a nectar within honey within amber within light
and stars
reflecting on her sloping shadows
lifting her up into myself we bind our
legs and arms and hips into fused pulse
no it is not a contest I seek to win
she is always going to love others
as they will always seek to touch her
but for that one moment as I let the sun heat my face
in thought
she is mine for this second and I reach out
and she comes
into my arms willing
dissolving and hungry
like red sand rises with
encroaching storm I hear her
cry in my ear a cascading joy
something breaks free
and she knows then
the loveliness of her
reflecting within me