Promising my lips the sensation of falling

like lovers restarting their hearts,

my voice broke; suddenly and without recollection,

shattering every poem that has found its way

wrinkled and stained upon the diagram of my feminine heart.

 

Filling every fissure in a topographical memory 

for me to squeeze dry between nervous fingers,

my voice escaped against your smile, wordless for all its worth

and I sucked my nerves dry, eager to taste all that you are.

 

My pen cramps beneath the slow crawl of my hand,

desperate to do that thing that writers do, late 

when the sky has closed all of its windows, save the one 

only painters and poets can breathe out of.

 

Stuttering on faulty wrists and hesitant finger joints,

I close my paper, throwing open every window in the house

I have built for myself and I see you; behind closed eyes, I see.

You, through the daylight, crashing through the stars, bringing me down the moon before I could tell you that I have secretly

hungered for its paleness beneath the flesh of all that beats

steadily within me.

 

I see you. Holding onto me for the here and now, your eyes 

holding me closer, scanning image after image for your brain

to pin me up where I have always been. It's you. 

 

And I can hardly write a word

good enough for what that means 

in this time and place. 

 

I can very nearly bite past

the hardness of the grammar, the insecurity 

of the prose, the silence of the vowel 

that never fell off the tongue in the right sequence. 

 

You are my everything, and finally

the simplicity of the imagery 

is enough.