at the lightest end
of that street
my childhood
was barefoot runnings
along the hallowed halls
of pavements and
pebbles.
we had charming
intervals with
masculine suns
and mother
moons, along
fields of crickets
and hiddenmost ponds.
say this to me now:
my spacious life of
long leanings against
fragrant barks and
layings-down upon mystery leaves
and the wet spots left
behind by odd nightly insects.
we conducted our
business before
other people's gods
who gave us their eyes
to see what a
soul is supposed to
feel in time.
you have no time now,
and that is fine:
i love you for
saying you'd kiss
these lost lips with
the clarity and taste
of the dew.
you smelled hot
to the tongue,
a tender touching
of noble fruits
and waltzing with
limbs on fire that
took us outward.
before grave autumn
took us back to
the chalky spread
of empty tables
and barren lands
of naked truths exposed
in relief.
i loved our days
of confused talk
that was salty
to the eyes and
made us blink
toward the sun
who swam with us.
we enjoyed the
celebrated adult-
speak back
then and avoided
hitching rides just
before thunderstorms
and backward winds.
i think if we'd
known more - known
better - we'd have
experimented with
our limbs and our
hearts, if only to be
fast virgins in god's country.
we never stooped so low:
we circulated in the
veins; we swam upstream
to save a life, which was
yours by the way,
i didn't want to tell you
back then.
when you captured the
head of the rose
you conquered this sadness,
you defined youth,
you made love to me
well before i eventually
made love for real.
i am under-defined now;
a far-reaching
solitude that stretches
back into memory,
aching to ache this
better way, at least
for a moment.
i wish we'd had a
way, back then,
to define certain
moments as being
important in the far
future, a term or expression
that made it crystal.
it would be 'love-springing'
maybe, or 'passion-coiling'
or, better yet,
...no, i won't
say it here,
to save this generation
from exactitude.
i have my music now
anyway, and good poems
from soft degrees of the sacred -
i don't need definitions, not as
long as my dreams are still pointed
to summer night skies that let me
swim with you naked.
