Green Death Beneath My Skin

I need the moon because it teaches me.
I will follow her, and she will find me-
someday, somewhere
in some lost place.

I love your hands because they hold the earth,
still faithful when all else fails.

I crave your mouth for what it could be,
sensual, devotional, urgent,
what might be kissed, confessed,
awakened.

Let us count the raven feathers in your nested hair,
before fate decides against us,
and your mouth withdraws readiness.

I would travel the length of you
as one who seeks mercy,
and cross holy ground in pilgrimage.

I have already traced
the hidden territories of your body,
so my mind can disappear.

Please bring blossom back
to what sorrow kept bare,
and wake green death
beneath my skin.

Your laughter cuts through me
clean as rain through an open wound.

Rivers sing in the dark below,
and something in me follows,
beneath consciousness,
beneath language,
beneath desire and despair.

I love you as tides love the moon
that draws their rise and fall.

They do not choose
but surrender.

So kiss me and know
how unimportant we are.

So we may learn to stitch
the distance between us.

For love returned is the fire by which we warm our hands.
It is your flame that sets blood moving again.

Be still, so we can feel how near absence
sits beside intimacy.

And I can decide to choose you again.