Your body remains bedrock
for me, beneath even
yet not separate from
the strata, the compressed
baked sediments vaulting
the traces of our ages
together, layered in discrete
ecologies of continuity and dis
junction, harmonious discord
or discordant harmony
as was always the choice.
No one shall know mine
as you do, know yours
as mine, intact
through the strata
to surface, mine
shall know none
as yours, no one
but I shall see
the girl in your calves
and eyes as you watch
the boy in mine
meet yours so briefly
always come back.
No other can watch me brush my hair
in the echo of parallel mirrors
till vision blurs, no one else
can touch your sex feeling
the scars trapped in amber
of ecstasy, I shall know
no other pedigree of leopard skin,
no landscape like the stream
I ventured as a boy, nor read
so in another the slump of time,
the senescence of its deep jams,
the enduring crevices where quick trout
still to thrill a tender hand.
Lying at your breast, I enter the cave
transported by indescribable aromas
more complex than cabernet, brewed
in cycles of fertility and ferment
conditioning my palette, my response
for half my life, easing me
down the blind tunnel
of letting-go to join you
somewhere delicate beyond language,
as permanent as familiar.
Within the bedrock the cavity,
within the cave the soft radiance
transfiguring us. Can you imagine
I'd forget the way, my pledge,
my need, or stay without
even barred?