This is the heart's wish, the lone
friend of the heart,
who doesn't spread its secrets,
but the twin red beats are pushed
with dark blood. Who thought of the kiss,
this bend of flesh and the letter it writes
against the hair, or into night,
the evening's blue shoulder?
Tonight you watch as I become a myth:
diminishing the clothes against my skin,
their slow descent against the gypsy whim of body.
The reds of flesh and lip and tongue,
back of the throat, and parts of speech,
parts of the world we love in whispers
of this private, lurid, throaty prayer.
Within what wide brace of strength
comes all this scent and wonder,
all these fat demands it makes
against my body's little, starry form.
Inside I am all constellation,
a transparent toy or a lantern of curve
and blaze, a work of fiction. But isn't that
the trouble with desire? It rides into town
when it wishes, and kicks up the dirt,
makes the womenfolk scream. Darling,
the rain, the blue vivid night. My curve
of words, my spread of leg.
Get your saddle on.
