Light seeps through chinks
as sparrows in the leaves
break out in chatter. Breezes
shift the gauzy curtains,
slip along the wall:
the chill blue fingers
of a northern spring. I let
the blinds up, watching
features I have come to love
spread out before me
like a brassy sea.
I cup your breasts,
the slow warmth of your body
lengthened to my own.
I float upon the surf, the rising
swell of our affection,
driven to the shores
of what we need. Outside,
the world begins without us,
traffic through the lights,
the early news at six o’clock.
The copper river coils
in the sun. It’s time, you say,
that you must leave.
Reluctantly, at last,
I let you go, loosen my grip,
let all my kisses turn to air
and lie here by myself
a further hour, thinking
of the way this world
collects us even from ourselves.
My friend, dear bright
incendiary skin,
tomorrow we must love
beyond these boundaries
of day and night,
of wax and wane,
must go on loving even
like the hills that break
beyond New Hampshire into Maine.