Sylphs, Arkadians and Pharaohs.
Jo looks like Clara Bow.
Her hair is the color of maple syrup on the first pour,
Dimples you could anchor rowboats in,
And cheeks as full as hot air balloons.
We talk outside a party at Billy Mallery’s.
She has a degree in Brain and Cognitive Science from MIT.
We are tipsy. She is coy.
I know,
I know,
I know,
That she wants to squeeze the muscles of my arms.
So, I grab her hand. Place her palm on my skin.
She can now feel the density of triceps and biceps
Once fed by bucking 3-wire bales of hay,
Carrying 50 lb. sacks of grain from truck to barn,
And lifting baby bull calves onto the bed of a white Dodge beater.
We stand in the living room at Packard
Watched by vertical brown and sky-blue stripes
Painted on the walls that surround us.
We’re together now.
Leaning into a first kiss.
Our lip meat mash together.
Our tongues begin to dance the Dance of the Seven Veils.
When the sixth veil lands near our feet,
My desire for oil wells becomes evident.
Stop. It’s sugar I want
Her lips say, “soften against mine.”
My lips become a touch.
A graze,
A skimming of cream off the top of the milk can.
Ours lips become as full as her cheeks.
Our kiss becomes a sigh.
The seventh veil drops.
My synapses fire in the way of the Tao.
Life becomes ubiquitous.
A Cole Porter lyric.
A wet tongue in the ear of a lover.
The teething off a stiffened nipple.
The explosion of a bale of hay
Having fallen 15 feet off the stack
Hitting the hardened dirt.
Its 3 wires snapping on impact.
“Can I endure the softness,” I wonder.
“Can I endure the love?”
“Let’s stain the moon, you and I,” Jo’s lips respond.
The blue and brown stripes
Can have all of us.
Indefinitely.
Headless buddhas can come to life
And play craps in the boxcar kitchen
Rolling the die on white down-filled blankets.
Quietude hums with eros innate.
Poets stop scratching their chests and hold their breaths.
Beauty reaches her 3rd and 4th redundancy.
Annihilate me with the sophistications of your soft lips.
Be not juicy metaphors.
Be shades of red and certain of God.
Be quintessential.
Be a cirrus cloud.
Be the perfect punchline.
The sweaty crevasse between breasts, nape of neck, and lower of back.
The oxygen that feeds fire.
The inhale in inspire.
Depossess the jack-hammers
Hammering,
Hammering,
Hammering,
Into blackened urban asphalt.
Be resolute with awe.
Be the slight opened mouth of a baby at sleep.
Be the sting of the first tattoo.
Be the wet tongue I want tracing, teething, pressing into my ear.
Be an echo running away from its mother
And evaporating into our own Milky Way’s
Be cows that kneel at midnight on Christmas Eve.
Be fingers soft-touching closed eyes,
Ruddy cheeks,
And softened lips.
Softened lips.
Softened lips
I’m blind. I’m a beggar now.
And Jo’s lips are now braille.
Empty of coin,
I turn the blue tin cup over
Closing it to the sylphs, the Arkadians and all the pharaohs.
What I’ve been begging for,
What I’ve been begging for,
What I’ve been begging for,
Now shows through my lips.
