I miss the nuances of your back
the curve of your spine in the dark
the eruption of breasts beneath thumbs
as hands trace the oceans of your ribs
drowning in the waves of warmth
as the rest of me sinks so deep
into your acrobatic hips
we could be Siamese twins
dancing in the moist heat
poured from mutual reverence
illuminating bed sheets as double stars
swallowed in nebulae of satin
in the absence of time,
your curves have been lost to my cartographers
each soft contour has became legendary
bends and dips deified into mythology
architecting tenets of my modern-day religion
parables passed through generations of cells,
from fingertips to bone marrow
newborn anatomy awaits your Second Coming
as it was told in the ancient days of your inhabitance
to the cellular shamans born after your departure
each concave inch of you now holds a god's name
the convex rises give birth to heroes
who ride through my waking dreams
bringing you back to me at mythical elevations
now, I understand why the faithful become fanatics
the daily moments of passing touches
fade in the shadow of the tactile nights:
when I explored your hips' rhythms
to match them in perfect pitch
and score symphonies to climax
or tasting your femininity
— as you climbed the wall, illiterate of consonants —
with a tongue that would have cut itself free of anchor
evicted its muscle and packed tastebuds in a suitcase,
making my teeth ex-neighbors
and mortgaged lodging between your thighs
rather than articulate another poem
on the currents of my stale lungs,
coming to your country as an immigrant
holding fast to the dreams born in the old country
and greeting your pudenda like Ellis Island
or pressing chest to your shoulder blades
when we regressed into our quadrupeded ancestors
shedding off the fabrications of status and names
before languages and civilizations muddled intentions
as pure as this
there, I was trying to beat my heart through rib cage
with every thrust, while in reverse
your heart attempted the same through yours
each eager only to touch aorta to aorta like a handshake,
molt off this used flesh and bone,
leave behind the smoking remains of our lust,
undock from our flesh chasses
splayed open in the bed like spent lobster shells
limbs still entwined around each other
resigning contented smiles engraved for future archaeologists
I couldn't be closer to you then
unless all of me
followed the part of me
already inside
I wanted to swallow each part of you like dessert
starting at all your perimeters
ingest you into my belly and reassemble you
so you could consume me from the inside out
and leave all the parts of me tasted
by a tongue that still leaves me breathless
this is the part of the poem
where expectations are to call you a goddess
but you're not, just a tangle of skin and sinew
calendar dates knotted around a name;
our anecdotes and memories
are forever irrelevant unless structuring new narratives
based on them
instead we could meet again as strangers
play new parts with fictionalized ancestries
like theatre actors changing scripts
we could choose to speak new languages
or feign unintelligible dialects
pretend familial rivalries
like Montague and Capulet
all the irrelevant pageantry lose importance
because your smile, preempting your kiss,
showers your warmth to all my cold places
the eagerness of my tongue disrobed from language
buried in your folds
rhythmically racing to keep damp
your well of pleasure so you lose touch with the world
outside this room
and forgetting all the unimportant histories
made by others' personal politicians
banishes their immaterial machinations
from our self-imposed isolationism
in the dim glow of our skins
beneath tungsten incandescence
electrons transcend their mortal coils
ascend into photons
refract off the contours of your smile
race at lightspeed into my retinas
bringing with them the quintessence
of your joy manifested by all my muscles' labors
toiling to cultivate and fructify a few moments more
until the climax uncaps prophesies
and we sink into the shelter of spent limbs
and broken tensions awash in oblivious serenity
in the denouement
the recalculating mathematical measurements
of touch and pressure and pleasure
the whens and hows resume conjectural status
and become theoretical constructs we can experiment later
and in the dark
when the tender brilliance of falling stars illuminates
exterior observers rooted into soil beyond the windows
your smile reincapsulates my intentions
into a bottle kept in my neocortex
I can open whether you're slumbering alongside
or gallivanting in foreign provinces
inhale deep the imagery
and relive your articulating smile
and all the endeavors endured
to rebirth it on your lips
Coda
amidst this flesh that strangers name
indwells the purpose to bring forth
the upturned curl and parted lips
that soothes the fire in my chest
and brings you back to my embrace,
no passing time nor distant road
can supplant the memory
that rebirths our touches hence
and leaves my heartbeat warm and full
as if worlds 'round would fade to dust
Canadian-born Sedona residents celebrated Canada Day — the anniversary of the country’s founding in 1867 — at Posse Grounds Park on Thursday, July 1. The group included, from left, Joanne Marco, Tony Marco and Jacquie Randall, all from Hamilton, Ontario; Sedona Police Department Cmdr. Ron Wheeler, from Winnipeg, Manitoba; Harold Gorny, from Toronto; and Azami Ishihara, from Kingston, Ontario.
Azami at the grill.
The group gathers to eat and reminisce about Canada.
Zach Brutsche and Azami show off the Canada Day temporary tattoos she brought back from Alberta.
I got a temporary tattoo above my real tattoo.
