Gleam

GLEAM

I.
Freckled flesh, honey-tongued stamen
supple and soft in the slick skins, swallows of thick
kisses, swollen with the sticky, sweet fruits I slip
and stick into your mouth, an open womb, an
open, unadulterated pool of light –

II.
In the garden of green apples
I will wake you,
I will say –
This is my body.

This is the white skin –
Cut with gleam.

GLEAM

I.
I dream of this: to devour oneself, to consummate desire
To suspend oneself and the other in an interminable larva,
Untouched and indissoluble, tender and without wings.

II.
Obsession as sacrament.

III.
Wingless not as lesser, but as wormlike –
Or mammalian, pink flesh (a slick placenta)

IV.
You are clean and without fault - undefiled marble
Without excess, without ornamentation.

V.
What god are you asleep in this thick night?
What desire stirs my stomach? My hymns
Speak of need, of half-opened flowers.

VI.
I bring this as an offering: not virginal, but incandescent.

GLEAM

I.
To be pure is to be identical.

II.
You are slight and unassuming –
White hyacinth amidst cyclamen,
Wet with light –

III.
I cannot touch you, despite
How often I take you inside of myself;
Cannot gather the light which falls
From the crop of your hair, from
The glow of your skin in its freckles –
You who need nothing outside of yourself.

IV.
Girllike in my way, a small mammal
Ripe with want –

V.
Do I protect this hunger? This animal prayer?

GLEAM

I.
We are ankle-deep in apple blossoms, daffodil, baby’s breath –
You hunger for nothing, take only the sun into your stomach.

II.
It is an act of worship, this refulgence, this regeneration.

III.
Should I drop myself against the curve of your leg?
A supplicant, no longer self-immolating, but
Prostrate. Eating only the sun, the slip of gold, the
Self-contained circuit of an indomitable star.

IV.
You are alive in the temple of light. Anointed with
Apple blossoms, daffodil, baby’s breath – Chaste
And unmarked, you demand nothing, touch nothing,
Yourself a light, yourself the temple of the kingdom of the sun.

V.
I enter,
With shame of the fruits that I bring.

GLEAM

I.
Your hands are phosphorescent. They glow without heat,
Without flame. I run to you in the dark, my feet rip through mud,
Through impassable black. The light is immaterial, yet absolute.

II.
There is only the light, the recoil of the cavity.

III.
Attentive to its deficiency, my body distances,
Disestablishes; unseals and spills over.

IV.
The fluid is infertile, yet incorruptible. It sustains itself,
Subsists on the light, the recoil of the cavity.