Summer (a love poem)

I wanted to be sure this was our island

so we could walk between the long stars by the sea

though your hips are slight and caught in the air

like a moth at the end of a river around my arms

I am unable to understand the sun your dizzy spells

when you form a hand around me on the sand

I offer you my terrible sanity

the eternal voice that keeps me from reaching you

though we are close to each other every autumn

I feel the desperation of a giant freezing in cement

when I touch the door you're pressed against

the color of your letter that reminds me of flamingos

isn't that what you mean?

the pleasure of hands and

lips wetter than the ocean

or the brilliant pain of

breathless teeth in a

turbulent dream on a roof

while I thought of nothing

else except you against

the sky as I unfolded you

like my very life a liquid

signal of enormous love we

invented like a comet that

splits the air between us!

the earth looks shiny wrapped in steam and ermine

tired of us perspiring at every chance on the floor

below I bring you an ash tray out of love for the

ice palace because it is the end of summer the end

of the sun because you are in season like a blue

rug you are my favorite violin when you sit and

peel my eyes with your great surfaces seem intimate

when we merely touch the thread of life and kiss

7.30.69

Source: Incidents of Travel in Poetry (City Lights Books, 2015)