Gifts

Was once a wayfarer
Wandering in the broken circles
Of an inconsolable sadness

With just
One eye
One leg
One arm and
Two mouths

One too inept to utter
The other a mercenary
With a battering ram for a tongue

Suddenly a clearing was forged by
The breeze of your swaying hips
I was brought to trial by your smile
And like Saul on the road to Damascus

I was conquered
Converted
Conflated
Converged now with your violin skin

Now my only violation is an irrepressible
Need to please you

It is as if the forest
Accidentally caught notice of you
On the edge of a riverbed
Conjured me from the marsh and
Placed me on your front steps
As a token of its appreciation

A whisper. A squeeze. A trembling.

Panting.
Sighing.
Ankle angled over a thigh.
You blush.
A rush.
Lips spread like wings of a pigeon.
Skin harvested.
No vested interest.
Fields plowed.
A partly cloudy afternoon.
A disrobing.
An uneasy feeling.
Heat.
Beads of sweat on your forehead.
A perfect curvature.
Voluptuous wall.
A matchstick’s red head rubbed on flint.
An intent look.
Unattached.
A nose entrenched under a chin.
Lotion applied to a calf.
A calf slaughtered for the feast.
A secret in a fleshy fold.
A promise unattached.
A wrist rotated counterclockwise.
Quivering.
A trinket falls to the fall.
Two bells conjugated like a verb.
Your mercurial poise.
A feline pose.
Lock and key joined.
A door opened twice.
An oasis.
Water lapped by a dog’s tongue.
A silent rhythm.
A heartbeat out of synch.
An eyelash pressed on a wax sculpture.
A finger skating across your forehead.
Four legs woven into a wicker basket.
Sliding.
Ungraceful pirouettes.
Buttons sewn onto a turquoise vest.
A clipped nail in a wastebasket.


Concurrent currents of parallel streams.
A distant pulse.
Subliminal sucking.
Breathe from a laugh, resurrected.
Your cheeks, pillows.
A sliding door.
A well-oiled machine.
Fumbling.
Tugging.
Rubbing.
Grasping.
A cupped hand used as a safety net.
A whisper.
A squeeze.
A trembling.
A treble clef.
A cleft heart, unattached.
A car double-parked.
A mountain interrupted by a valley.
An imperfect circle.
Attached.
Unattached.
Attached.
Unattached.
An attaché case of unopened letters.
A symphonic moaning.
A phone disconnected.
Flexion.
Tension.
Extension.
Torque.
A thunder.
A clenched fist.
A bit lip.
Candle wax on a dead victrola.
A flood.
A flushing.
A draught.
An opening.
A closing unrelated.
Cracked eggs on a kitchen floor.
Watering an anonymous lawn.
The heavens having a seizure.
An exploration.
A departure.
A breath.
The singed cuff of a smoking jacket.
Two car radios playing the same station.
A refraction.
An unfurling.
An unmasking.
A question left unasked.
A contraction.
A contradiction.
A cleansing.
An unveiling.
A becoming.
A breath, unattached.
A death, unattached.
A slumped body.
Thumbprints on a pelvis.
A bent knee.
A shuttle launch.
An undoing.
A whisper.
A promise, unattached.
Slight pressure.
A bosom, unattached.
A foreskin, unattached.
A grape squeezed.
The skin of an orange peeled.
A puddle in the driveway.
Unattached.
A fugue hummed.
Withering.
Unattached.
A deep sleep.
Unattached.
A reconstruction.
Butterflies.
Pins and needles.
A cool sweat,
Unattached.
The last minute of a day.
Unattached.

An oil painting in the den,
Waiting to be hung.

Wrestling Satyrs

Murals of
Non-sequiturs

Satyrs wrestling on a
Mountainside

A tenement
Made of sand

Washed over in high tide

The committee
Dismantles

A flask is filled with
Conspiracy theories

Once the flask
Runs empty

We will continue to pass

Emptiness
Around the
Room

A wheel will spin counterclockwise

Undoing the coastline

Candidly

Until we are returned
To a chapter
Where the names we were given

Are of
No use