a mistress

it seems he has a mistress
he never thought he would
he meant to live in honor and
be loyal and do good

it seems he has a mistress
and each new thing is tried
to show not that he's aging
but that he hasn't died

it seems he's like the others, they say
decent men are rare
the question though that some might ask
is why the hell

she's there

That Haunted Look

She turned to me with haunted look

Atop the spires of her pain,

I took her to my house and bed

And made it snow, and sleet, and rain

Her brown hair tumbled everywhere,

As she arched back in focus pure;

I thought I’d known that haunted look,

But never could

Be sure

Like A Book

Our laughter turned into a sort of rhythm,
Our rhythm turned into a sort of dance;
As motion filled with music filled with passion,
A double-bed became a vast expanse --

A journey that it took a while to finish,
Two pioneers upon a new-cut trail;
And she was like a book I couldn't put down,
Except I had to read it all

By braille

Twisted and Interlaced

One afternoon,
 when we were autumning and such,
 you asked me 
 when I would, finally,
 and 
 why not now

I never understood,
 the way that your eyes 
 changed what they saw,
 making something 
 out of every shifting mass,
 and yet --

One afternoon,
 twisted, and interlaced,
 I answered your question
 in the affirmative, 
 and
 you answered questions

 I'd never thought to ask

A Sonnet on Learning

She said to me: “Come now, you owe me one,”
And bid me not to worry. She would show
Me how to do these things I’d never done;
Just how to pay the debt I’d come to owe —

And slowly, like a child that learns to crawl,
I inched along the traces of her ground:
She gave off teaching and surrendered all,
Her measured breathing changed to quick’ning sound

To give herself completely to my trust,
And only on her pleasure then to dwell;
To move in slightest ways so to adjust,
To find her shining as last moments fell —

The lesson learned to be used, then, in living:
Receiving finds its fullest mark, in giving

believable

you told me to believe you,
although i had my doubt;
it all seemed hard to understand,
but i’m not one to flout

a confidence, once given.
and so i played my role,
and found you quite believable
when taken

as a whole

Any kind of way you want

Any kind of way you want
Any sort of thing you need
Take me where you want to go
Sate the hunger you must feed

Narratives and tongues of fire
Shadows dance and morning breaks
Any kind of way you want
And as often as
It takes