In half my body
I keep hold on you.  In half
I fear you. When we spin in place
or twist in our sheets
I quickly lose track of where
my feelings for you are.

Did I leave the wanting
in my hands, or is that where
fear is resting now, and I
should push you off?
Do I turn my head to the right
to be near you
or to keep from seeing you?
And if perhaps the divide
is in fact between
my upper and lower halves,
well…it is no wonder
I can’t remember
where I put what.

When I see your eyes,
though,
that’s the moment when
I can feel the two sides at once,
soap bubbles pressed together
yet unjoined…

and I hold my breath
in anticipation of how
they will mix when
inevitably, they burst. 

The fast over,

he supped on honey
and hard bread,

the sweetness colliding
with the blood from his gums
where the sharp crust
had cut him,

and he smiled
redly,

the full moon in his mouth
losing its grandeur to his wet eyes.

This is the happiness
I have missed, and it hurts
like swords, like a song stretched
to the limits of my voice,

he thought,

as he let old pain
fall from him
in long streams of silver
to the icy soil
of the winter garden
where he knelt. 

But oh,
how I love to sing
in the moonlight,
naked, even if
the moonlight and the winter
are within me,
at least I am no longer
hungry, and
this salt and sugar

are all I need.

The love songs of the ordinary
can be heard in the cattails
that intrude in the ditches
of the roads between the town
and the city.  That thin whistle
and shattering rattle
are all you need to know
about how we find each other,
setting up housekeeping
where everyone can see
and no one will notice. 

When the exemplary
drive past us, we just stand,
moved a little perhaps in their wake,
but holding fast to the ground
in places they would never think
to build upon. We sing there
the way they think they sing,
but we know better
as we fray and burst and
spread our seed,

and we’ll be here when they’ve gone by us
rushing to the homes built on solid ground
that they’ll abandon in search of a better place,
a place they’ll find and lose again
while we and our ordinary
sit by the road and sing
and watch them pass.

rain against the windows
all night
after a break in the rain
that was against the windows
all day

earlier a gray sky
had cleared long enough
for the full moon
to silver the land

and then came
the return of the rain

and now I can’t get back to sleep

since across the way
two are apparently
making love
while holding their positions
against the rain
against the windows

I can’t see them
but anyyone awake can hear them
so the window must be open
and they must be getting wet

that must be
where the moon went
to stay dry and keep doing
its appointed work

of illuminating hope

Instead of my common heart,
my overworked soul, I give you my feet:
unsteady, crawdaddy-rough chargers
upon which I pace
and stroll and run when chased;

I give you my fat-educated
and expanded belly, ready to bounce
and shake and heave with emotion
or digestion, establishment of my place
on the path I walk, going always before me;

I offer you my unmowed head
and my aging ears, the ringed and studded
captives obscured by the overgrowth
above.  I give you my dimmed and unfocused
eyes.  My staggered teeth.  My flaked lips

that pronounce well enough but rarely say anything
well-considered, preferring to be ruled
by the blurt of the moment that may be truth,
may be nonsense, may not be either just yet —
but you should listen for it to settle on one or the other

in midair.  I give you my tattoos, blue words
stretched and softening as they age, now mellow
declarations that once were strident and loud
with clean edges and obvious, blocky contrast
to the pale and blubbery hide they rest on.

Take me:  furred chest, small nipples, creased abdomen,
flattened and spreading ass, stick-figure manhood,
take every dear deficiency on a worn anatomy.
I am a body made of stories, I can tell them all,
and failure and addiction and weakness led me to them;

they’re nothing I can recommend, but they’re all that I can offer,
outer suit of the common heart,
the overworked soul,
the simple jungle I’ve made of my life. 
You can take it all.

Read me by reading the unfortunate shape I’m in.
Beauty is too easy when you do not take a detour
to the unveiling.  Follow the signs,
come out at the destination you desire: I am waiting
there, magnificent, if only by being here still.

this fading night
has been
dark chocolate
biting softly back
at my happy tongue

but dawn is coming soon
and with it will come the moment
when I will
bite down
to learn whether what I’ve chosen
measures up

my fear is not
that I will be disappointed
but
that I may not be
utterly delighted
that I will have imagined
more than I can chew

and that by dismissing
the good
because it is not
perfection

I will forget the sweet stab
of dark chocolate
that has enthralled me
thus far

If I am fortunate enough
to be allowed
to explore you,
you have my word

that I will not make
the classic explorer’s mistake
of claiming you.

No flag, no shouted obeisance
to God and country
as I move forward
mapping the terrain.

Love is no
manifest destiny —

there’s no mandate
set before hand
to be enforced.

We have learned
the hard way — seen
too many vanish bitterly
into exploitation
and other follies.

No, if I am fortunate enough
to be allowed to
to explore you, to make
a home here — wonder of wonders,
to be prayed for fervently — I swear

I will always be your guest,
no imposition
of force or law will follow in my wake.

The truth is, I never liked
where I come from.  I’ll send
no word back
of what riches there are to be taken.

I’ll stay here, I’ll dwell
solely on your terms.  Become
one with you. Learn the customs,
Go native, as they say back home,

usually with a sneer in the tone —
I’ll be a better man for forgetting them,
because what did I ever learn back there
except a code of seizure and theft?

If I am fortunate enough
to be allowed to explore you,
to have those endless, breathless moments
of discovery, you have my word
that I’ll tear up the map
the minute I find a place
to settle
and just be here…
because you don’t need a map
of home, and Lord,

I want this to be home.