Preparing countertops,
provisions, and the aroma of attention
So it is a man acquires cucumbers
and a carafe
Stocked liquor cabinet, quiet
retreat
From the city to make simple syrup
available
So that a woman can have of all
things options
Space of Sam Cooke and Etta James,
Otis Redding and a turned page
On a coffee table for a man that
does not drink it
Never wanted to feel addicted as if
he had to have something
He could not say no to in order to
function
The chocolate, the mint, the alien
in his body he tries to live with
The first relationship is with the
self; demons, demons, badass angels
Swooping in like a blood drenched
Valkyrie to stand back to back
Take on the fields, born to die,
root feet in flowered wings
Sail the mind maleficent and kind
entwined that we are each
These beasts ripping flesh in our
lovers to the line pressed
The sensations of animalistic human
dearth
To walk these lives in lined Earth
socialized discretion
To be appropriate to the curve of a
rectangle
Reptile brain wants to feed, primate
wants to burrow
Inside the consciousness of a
lover’s ego
She walks in feeling underdressed, a
collared shirt to glimpse
Facet of his daily tasks sans the
jacket and the computing masks
Still in posture and quiet voice,
slowing night from too long unending days
Stroke of the clock and the unknown
hand
Choosing to share this current of
what cancer is and has done
The impact he knows she is not
speaking to hear a solution no one could offer
Her presence soaked in an emotive
shower to push out and pull back in
As her witness she chose him to
verbalize the drain
He sees her strength of her boundary
of encumbrance
Like a mountain top above the clouds
of where she probably has been
Imagining a world where she comes
down and they might climb the next one together
Warm, schmaltzy like the way Grace
Kelly looks at Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window
Broken leg and he realizes how much
she is capable of and his world turns
Hope like a sharpened knife or a
compass in the badlands
She makes him want to get a juicer
and stock coffee creamer
Like that slice he cut floating in
her cocktail; she asks him if he is going to eat his fruit
His teeth gnash the orange and she
warns him of the lime’s tang
Soaked in a potion he may always
associate with her name
He bites; she asked for another,
obliges, she reads on the sofa
Wandering into Calvino’s fairy tales
he returns with hers and a Sazerac
She asks to finish this tale and
keeps her feet comfortable
Wraps his hand behind her shins and
finds Springsteen’s Thunder Road
As they sit side by side quietly
reading, just being like promise
Hazy head to get the cut lemons for
Pimm’s cup in the fridge
Settle nudity in the darkness, the
not sleep
Wanting to devour and be devoured
Rough, tease, leg wrestling
Pulling, wrapping in heat, pressing
and how
Biting, pinching, grabbing, thrust
Pulsing fingers rounding hub
Hands in playful seek, mouths
hiding, peek
The moon is not quite full
The strength in her legs straddling
skin to slide and pin
It may be the first time she danced
for him
He saw her ballet in the darkness
and felt happy drunk
Besotted body blood-flushed hung
Like a portrait of how much fun they
could have
The texture of what alive is as Dali
stands there melting time
Wanting night to expand so that
alarm clocks and work
Demanding sleep for the roles of day
may get paid
But this, oh this; his elbow is
stretching in every compression of his hand
To firmly take her skin in scapula,
bicep, breast, buttock, and gliding above her perineum
Circling in lines like a trace of
pheromones coming home
Stretching the stamps on his
passport waiting for a visa
Contemplating citizenship of where
this might go
Wanting that emotional root to
genuinely implant in each of them
Because he sees potential and wants
a woman that believes in magic to believe in magic
So he might believe too; to say she
is thinking about thinking she might begin to care about him
He can hear her smile in the
charcoal; she asks him what he is looking for
A life partner, turn the corner and
a warehouse that just keeps going
The boxes, words, stories, and
emotions are endless
The surprise of what one thought
could fit in a person obliterates paradigms
Each to be his and herself,
complement
Wants a woman to want what he has to
offer
And in that sentence he felt like he
revealed himself like his past flipped the light switch
He quit speaking and let the air
settle like tonic water
She says she is a natural blonde
And paints another living metaphor
in his head
Rebellion and a fighter’s punch to
claim the paint on the blade
She was stabbed with and be that
badass angel slaying back
Floating through his mind on fire
“Sometimes
it’s like someone took a knife baby
Edgy
and dull and cut a six-inch valley
Through
the middle of my soul
At
night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And
a freight train running through the middle of my head
Only
you can cool my desire, I’m on fire”
The curl of the morning of her phone
going first
Elbow swollen like the joint is
going to burst
Curling up slowly in the pierce of
the light
Pulling the alarm he worried about
in the night
Sounding off, she would have to deal
with
Asked to switch bodies and he didn’t
think of it
The skeleton rattles, time ticking
down
Horse needs a saddle, gunfight at
the corral
She rides bareback and he wants to
go too
She got to go and do what she’s got
to do
Seen the orange blossom special
thunder through town
Mustangs running and he knows that
sound
Hoofs burning fields he will never
try to tame
He has his own broncos storming
plains
“Hey
little girl is your daddy home
Did he go and leave you all alone
I got a bad desire, I’m on
fire
Tell me now baby is he good to
you
Can he do to you the things
that I do
I can take you higher, I’m on
fire”
Morning calling points his legs in
the air
Turns on NPR as he starts to shave
his beard
College story coming on about
budgets being cut
Fined for mishandling student’s
sexual assaults
Confidentiality and having a
counselor paired
Segment sponsored by a cancer
researcher and his mind goes there
Universe bending in and the razor
slices the mirror’s stare
Puts his business suit on and shows
her his tattoo
If time goes on from the doorway’s
taboo
Stairway down and the coffee is in
her phone, dream baby dream all the way home
Sleepless state, head’s in a haze,
walk to her car, mind is spinning days
See her again; I have got a bad
desire, baby I’m on fire
