Built in so many ways you could

almost see the hand of God among them, their

faces, their shapes and their sounds:

the facts of their bodies, as real in death as life,

a proof of the wrong that’s been done. 

i wind you up like so much challah, warm
and fat and heavy i twine you on the kitchen
counters in practiced hands. tonight
your limbs are perfect clockwork, the beat of me
a gravity we both lay ourselves down in.
rise like a girl from her deathbed and dance:
in a desert there is plenty of heat where
we could bake for years. rise like
this is the first beckoning you have followed,
the first you have heard, rise like your blood
does not pace in your veins waiting for
the shepherd to come and find you here.

you should know that in between
that rough voice saying "what you got" and
the growl in your stomach
there is space for more of you
if you climb out and find it i will
show you
in the valley between my deserted
hearts i hold space for you
a battleground i rent out monthly to
young men with bears who don't know
it is yours, it is an artifact
i groom for the liberty that is penance

The world is brighter in firelight, the lines

on your forehead not quite so pronounced, 

I choose to imagine this table

is perfect in this candlelight, that we are

exactly what we seem to be and nothing more or less inflamed.

Later you will refuse to touch me.

When the wax slides, hot and smooth, up

between the creases in my flesh,

a prayer for the graceless mounds of body you can't 

control, any more, leave the residue

and the sweet burns that surround.

Remind me I am alive. Remind me of my pain, and culpability.

Are you thirsty, love? Tired? Bored?

I can be a better toy, I can 

be a helpmeet and a maker and a lover and a keeper,

till the inevitable moment and I'll burn this house down

like the cask of kindling it is. The fire

will hold me closer and sweeter than ever you did.

Listen. 

I can be comfortable in free fall.

I have my own equilibrium.

I understand the mechanics of landing on your feet.

I know who and what I am.

I make decisions with both hands and a mouth full of booze.

But when I land--on both feet--then, what I want to feel is land.

I would like, someday, to stand still.

I would like, someday, to learn to hold on instead of learning to loosen everything that holds me.

I would like to experience the solidity of gravity and concrete and hard brown dirt before I feel the sand slide around beneath me again.