To have your naked body
Sprawled upon my sheets
Like flower petals in gardens
What a sight to have you
Free and bare, spread out
Like modern dancers, wide and long,
Like ballerinas
Your body, unveiled
Each trail of skin exposed
Except for that rosy bud of a nipple,
That hides beneath the tips of your hair,
A ripple of my silk sheets sheltering
Your navel, the curve that leads to the shrine
Blessed cloth! I dare not touch it!
What a pleasure it is, it was, it must be
To lock our knees, entwine our shins and calves
Like wild weeds
We must have looked like children, felt like kids
Giggling to each other’s dimples, extending our hands
To the shafts of baby sunshine,
Squinting our eyes from the light of trickling sun,
Like hatchlings in nests
And what a glory,
Darling, what delight
To have your buttocks resting
Like plump pillows on my bed, as if it were your own
I can sometimes feel you slither your way into me still,
Your feet dangling by the edge of the bed,
And I can still feel you
Slither your way into me
And I would look down between sighs
Look down between gasps
To see you lying on your belly, like a body surfer
Stretched like stars
The bones of your back narrowing, releasing
With the motions of your tongue
And I would push you deeper inside me
Pull you by your hair,
Push you from the back of your head
Push you deeper,
Push you deeper inside me,
Like a ship to the tide
Oh, what a sight! Such sacred vision!
When your turn came, to have you
Twitch and tremble, clutch the sheets
With all your fingers, crumple them in fists
When you resist to come
As if they were your own, as if these sheets
Stained and wrinkled like tired faces were yours
To dig your nails in, like carving lovers’ names in sand
Your toes tensed, your head shoved back
Against my pillow, like exorcism
Budging and budging, trying to rip through the casing
And then,
And then your thighs would relax upon my hands,
Like a soldier after battle
Their weight limp, succumbing to my palms
As if these hands were owners of your hips, your limbs
I would have, should have lived off of that
And to have this bed, the one that bears me
Through my years, be moist with the wetness of you
As if it were your own, darling
And it could have, should have
It is, it was, it must be that I loved you
