While Sinners Gossip

Lately,
as the earth begins to end,
the memory of heaven
has arrived in the order of affection
on the cluttered cupboards
of the neighbor’s rented cottage.

Come to tea at this ghost’s home
and the theology of practicing doubt
will be preached
over savory zucchini cakes
and muffins overflowing
with August.

God has given up drinking
in this kitchen
and has given himself
to the world’s wife
who has learned
what it took to seduce
the winter constellations
by reading notes
in the margins of possibility
and weaving the flowers of existence
into her attractive tendrils
on the length of steamy summer afternoons.

Forever is easy
around this cozy table
and the Almighty is willing
to walk out of Eden
to watch life unfold
in this particular eternity
while the river of truth
and honeyed scones
drop lightly
onto the marbled counters
while his beloved gossips
about the moon.

As I Am

Take me as I am,
the soft, ripe peach
of my left breast
and her nostalgic twin,
hanging bare in anticipation
of the harvest of your fingers,
the fine skin smooth, delicate
but for the downy fuzz of light
that summons your mouth
to the pink of a nipple.

What juicy sweetness you’ll find there
gathering perfume
from the inside
where the hard pit of morning
will be discarded,
dissolved into only the certainty
of this moment of opportunity
for happiness shared
between your lips
and my untouched skin.

Fear of the physical world’s agenda
and the frantic guarding of the body
straining against this fall,
against the gravity we all witness
is an obscenity
that will not enter
this bed chamber.

This sacred space
of the immaculate mind
is the only sensation
that is available
to replicate joy
as it drips
cool and delicious
down your chin
and onto the belly
of all you desire.

Unconditional

At the sharp edge of the waning moon,
cast onto the surface of Silver Lake,
I watch my loneliness
reach out to embrace
the idea of a lover
who might dive in
on the other side of this blackness
and find me sitting here
waiting for all this emptiness
to disappear as easily as drowning.

I have become the moon
who foolishly rises with hope
into the skies looking at all that might be
only to find myself used up,
slowly lost in the sea of stars
until I am unseen,
invisible to the caresses
of truth and gentle love.

I am, after all, unconditional
in my ways,
and always dance
with my hand
held lightly
over the heart
of my partner
in this tango
that weaves the soul tightly
to the causes of flesh
and joy that rises up
like tides
pulled by the forces
of the singing moon.

I am, after all,
hung over from the excesses
of this celebration
I was not invited to.
I am recovering
from the spaces between
birth and the place of all
knowing.

Sitting still
I wait for the next breath
to rescue me from hooting owls
and the deep repetition
of ancient, howling loons
before sleep laps up
onto the empty shore.