I wasn’t fooled by these walls of my body
but loved them touched, like a seed
that germinates in fire; shy slide of pressure,
tally of cries. I am my first and oldest system,
a figment of that first imagination
set running, but I concede to your vision:
that look you give me like nothing
other than my throat will do. Your affair
with my ankles is legion, an emperor
thumbing his ostrich plumes, a moon
drawn down with string to delay a debt.
You have made me an Eden, the veins
of my wrist the twin rivers of Heaven,
an altar where neck meets spine. Eden,
by which I mean, you will leave me.
This is drawn from “If You Love That Lady.”
