Slip

I want to slip in beside you
- in bed in step in photographs -
fixated on each arm freckle again.
Sweater shrug,
cover and reveal and cover and reveal.

I hunger for involuntary spasm,
your body and I trading in whisper.
The rush of air propelling laughter,
the rush of blood blush quaking hips,
your own hand cupping back a cry to herald warm contortion.

“How much?”
And how can I explain how
your face forbids such thinking?
You coax out an early thing that cannot speak
- that needn’t speak -
and afterward the still warm chamber.

Part your hair with my breath,
the starts beside me, a body in dreams,
with a peck against the surface tension
like a fish, cooing recognition,
realigning against my torpor.

Slipping through some crowded wood - a party now -
should let you lead in such things you know better.
Waking in your bed, the gray,
holding hands while we slept
wound like coiled rope.

It’s better this way.
With you as one of many.
With me as one of many.
What other choice do we have we’re running out of time.
I press my face against your chest and draw you in.
It should be enough it is it is enough.

Posted reminders, diligent notary,
A transparent frame which surrounds the vision
on which to print
reminders in lipstick and marker.
Doubt in several fonts and sizes, “this is a person like you imagine,”
“it is you,” that will be easier
- it isn’t wisdom -
a tepid screed, another barrier,
my heart is in the right place. Write that last bit large.

Moments of anger that hint at something private and real.
A force that comes of distance not velocity -
when you slip up and slap temper -
I’m just going through the motions,
I’m just standing out back staring into the retaining basin.

You were right
I am a thing of the sea.
You always knew and I was scared to say.
A man part which you love but something further -
it’s adaptive and for survival you of all people
should understand that august finality,
the need to dive down deeply; the need to come back slow.

Exposed to certain imaginings
in youth, these were seared into my vision.
They do not merely influence they are
fellow participants
and too numerous, too congested in grime and file,
cluttering our vision and confounding explanation.
It’s simply difficult,
I understand that. I should have been patient
and wasn’t.

You already bear such weight.
There’s a steel framework comprised of train trestles,
a certain stance with feet set and the arms wide to receive.
The awful thing is they expect it.
Leaning in and on and suppose suffuse you suffer buffeting
waves and broken yolk misplaced faith placed faithfully.
When it’s you afloat they’re gone
and you slip under.

I don’t want to love you, I want just to see
lights that peek out underneath
like tiny silver eggs.
Frail on some park bench or, better, fretting brunch,
and to then remember so sincerely something so sincere.
I nodded and I knew and now I’m saying:
you wonder what’s before,
I wonder after.