forgiveness 1

without f.

 

there will be nothing,

 

no evidence of pain

no birthday fusiliers,

stirred geometry beneath trees

 

your breath will not hold butterflies

nor your hands the rain,

 

in meaty grimaces

parapets, shadow puppets,

all good smells wash away

 

roots embrace you

as you wear an old day

of muddy feet

 

at night

amid rubble of spring, dirty moons,

hate chews on its leash

 

right behind you

 

 

this

i would remember you with

hair sung of sunlight,

your shoulders small, free

from the world’s heavy heavy cape

 

laughter buoys us

along our afternoon

to the ocean of a bathing sun

 

there is a light that rests around us when we’re together,

my eyes hold your face, your hands your feet

as if to recognise a garden,

an old city from another life;

a room of evening

 

your eyes hold me;

candles to guide my feet

across our delicate bridges

 

your ageless beauty

circumscribes me;

we dance on our soft beaches,

wastes where eagles keep their vigil,

dark filigreed paths stars tread

to breathe on the face of the moon

 

our kisses overwhelm the world

we die and are resurrected in them,

our breath lingers in unspoken syllables,

blossom in aches of desire

 

rent from clothes, books, pieces of electric sky,

we draw the many curtains,

under canopies of eye lashes

and all barely contained by skin;

 

we word the unutterable