I, thief

‘Not in public, I’ve told you!’
And so
I turn into thief
steal kisses
away from curious eyes
lip-ink that disappears
on cheek-paper
love-giving that’s for giver
in the perfect robbery
where victim loses nothing
in the soft oblivion
of the nothing given
and taken. 

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Desecrated temples

Temples in decay have stories
different names decorating ancient themes:
they rise from the shrub of abandonment
cries stifled in mid-air horror
as straying drives away from path
and over cliff,
their altars crumble
for want of flowery word
and clasped hands
in those timeless
rituals of evermore love
grass peep from stone-edge
listening for footfall
that tripped on word-edge
bled blood that will not stain
the marbled floors
of happy othernesses,
there no doors
hanging from rusty hinges
for temples of the heart
are doorless and unforbidding,
devoted ghosts make pilgrimage
but swing away at inquiry
wade into unwritten love-letters
consuming ink and heartache,
decayed but not desecrated   
they are guarded
by guard-stone heartness
dwarfed, yes 
but never wearied by waiting.

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Love-measures

‘How far we’ve come!’
That’s measurement of the immeasurable;
but love’s journeys
be they dawn to dusk and back
or the willing of orbits to meet
charting the life of a raindrop
or chasing moonbeam over water
with eye and whisper
evade the grasp of fingers
slip out of heart-vessel
like fishnet with a tear that won’t heal;

so we talk of how far we’ve come

and discuss love’s measurement
in distances unforbidden
for heart and feet
in their strength and tenderness
but left un-traversed  
for reasons that will not get written:

Love is not abandonment,

of journey and self,
but is measurable
in these ephemeralities.

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Dying

There will come a day
of poppies and grandfathers
rainbows that straighten out
not in color but perfume,
a day of tall grass
whose tips curl like music notes
and my fingers play
their splendid stems
and I would be old
so much older
that I would be younger than I am now
so lost and in such wonderful decay
that garments me in anonymity divine
and you would come
and in a moment of unrecognized ignorance
that off-guards and lulls
embrace.
And then I would die. 
Forever, this time. 

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