In the flickering light of the tinsel screen, your intent face, Radhika, is the knife that slices through the sarcophagi of years

in which laughter was a cynical defense against liminal spring, and my mealy mouth gnashed its teeth against hard winter bones.

This is the reason why I angle my body over yours across seats, and place mouth against your throat, to ask how soon can I drown again?

Overheard a stranger remark, “the act of love requires so much courage, don’t you think?” That question came back to me this morning as I watched the river slide over itself, at it walked forward into the fog. There is so much openness in the way water moves, and this makes me think of the liquid eyes of children before they are wounded into the age where dying enters their life as a distant glimmering. I would like to slide down the barricades to go to the edge of the besieged city where cavalry lead by its mad prophets stands in wait. But where will courage come, to take more than these steps, this one forward & the next one backward? Perhaps when I am wounded beyond mere pain.

In lamplight the blue agate is a firestar on the white expanse of Radhika's throat.

It signals, "Here, here lives the firebird song. Here is the geography for the dark hued one to map with his mouth.

Here is another metaphor for a hymn to the quaking rain, knock knocking all afternoon at the bay windows."

Cafe Annie, Houston 02/16/2008