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