[1] Before & After

Before knowing you, desire Was a steam locomotive chugging In and out of the grand concourse Of my body.

After finding you, I see it Steaming and stamping inside, Waiting for your light feet Now roving in my veins, To embark and depart Into those strange weathers Of my interior.

[2] Hymn

Rain, and an overcast Sabbath morning. I am not a believer. I am only sure Of these things I now know:

Your laughter that kept me awake, And then roused me from my sleep Last night; the nave of your ribs In which I kneel and call your name, The copulas of your breasts in which I hear distant thunder, and this bell In your belly, I toll with my tongue, In thanksgiving, in want.

[3] Ark

This house is the ark. These are the animals Of land, air, and water.

However entwined with You, I can’t tell which One of us is Noah!

[4] What He Said: (after Kuruntokai)

From the dense groves of waving palms This evening, I, Mayon, The dark-bodied god of herdsmen Drive the thirty-two grazing White cows across the hills and vales, Chewing on the white flesh of a tender Coconut, towards where jasmine beads The dark stand of her hair.

Desire webs my body Swimming in the dense moisture of a summer night

Chest sputtering, blood blast Furnace hematite, fire at hair root

Oaks and pines become The desert of burning bush

Sweat, salt, separation All to touch the mark

Over your eye, And then dive in

Into green silk, Their weave of eternity

A galleon sighted off the coast, Its masts roiling in the wind, Is soon driven to a stonewalled shore.

Beached I, Robinson, watch You among the wrecking crowd Gathered to flense it to its bones.

You are alone in the wheelhouse, Hunched with intent, unscrewing Its compass off the gimbal.

I leave others, laughing, around those more Valuable cargoes of calico, egg powder, Grand pianos, rubber boots all in size 9,

And follow you, black haired savage Beauty, hauling away that dialed glass box,
The sudden keeper of north, my north.