the way you hold a
pencil, the way you bend and tilt
toward what is important, toward
what moves you and yet holds
you in stilled animation,
wonder, desire;
the way your face opens
to the widest smile, the
bluest
laugh, like music
giving in. love to you and
the granular tender-
ness in your eyes, on your
finger tips, between the universe
of your lips, the tension of your sighs. this
kind of love has no name; it is just a
grate ful ness to be in the
same world with you.
we are out of time ,
inside this anatomy
anachronism .
on the outside , the
wind tunnels
persist : digging away at
our cells ,
hunting those
seven years .
you have the right to remain silent :
to triangulate temple , tendon ,
tomb ;
spirit whipping
through .
god is not one of us;
god is all of us.
if we could put our
hands on
the whole world,
we would feel it—
the story of
the story of the
spiral pearly gate
opening and leading
us up and out of our
self-preserved caves,
around and around in
remembrance circles until
we could not do even one thing
without love.
wandering around,
looking for something
to pour into, to feel through,
to let glide down the sides
like molten gold, like a woman’s
touch, like a moon-lit hot spring.
it all starts with the missing:
the void that needs to be filled,
that sucks in something i can give;
something i can take;
something i can sustain
for a time.
these borrowed hands,
heart, mouth, mind—strong
in their making—leave me
wanting, paint me with a deep
black-blue i love and hate
and barely push through.
Art: Moonflower, by Bo Olsen
