for Zoe

I could not let you see and so I did not cry
when you slipped a youthful hand into mine,
its mate that so firmly gripped your mother's--

and I saw your tiny body
suspended in the gap between parting galaxies,
straining to pull the universe together again.

Longing

I long to be longed for,
to be hunted from the shadows
like half-suspecting prey
as you undress me slowly in your mind
until your mouths water.

I desire to be desired,
the hand on my thigh that screams I want you now!
as we drive back to your place or mine
where we may or may not make it to the bed
before you pounce and rend my flesh in your frenzy.

To be the purpose of your passion,
the feast that is feasted on--
if only I could discover
who and where you are.

a prose poem

The early-dark of this Northern autumn finds me writing, my legs crossed beneath me on the cushions of my sofa-bench, my feet not touching the floor, not touching the world, just as I did as a child. The floor is the ocean; it is outer space and must not be touched or trod upon -- and by not touching that floor, I am free in these moments from the real, from caging expectations. I am free to think of you, free to write you into myself like the final rhyme of an unfinished couplet. I am free to stand in the void and not be alone. I am free to encompass the suns and the galaxies, to present them to you as a bouquet of nuclear flowers. I am free in those moments, those moments, to be whole again.

for a true and valued friend

I cannot say I love you.
You are no object, no thing to be held
by such words--
and I do not know them to be true,
but that you are as natural to me as breathing,
effortless like a morning sun.

a found poem

HODGES

Regina M. Johnston
1834-1902

Mother of

Henry A. Hodges
1860-1860

Dora F. Hodges
1865-1870

Chester A. Hodges
1884-1886

Four small footstones, from right to left--
CAH
DFH
HAH
Mother

Your eyes unfocus me until
every moment is the half-dawn light
waking me next to you.

Necessary and Sufficient

To be like the newing of the moon,
the ritual release
of this burden of being.

Is it not necessary,
this flux, these troughs
where one rests open and empty
and brimming with a star-laden sky?

But to hold the sufficiency of self,
a heartbeat, the passing of one moment
and another--
circles of circles
that cannot and cannot end.