Fingertips graze your neck to touch
a forgotten intimate frequency,
I can sense the river rushing beneath
the vast unseen world that your skin enshrouds.
I’ve known this surface all too well,
the goosebumps that bloom
in such a close proximity now,
the invisible waves of heat rising
like steamy mist after warm rain.
I have to know all that lies beneath,
what survives after the storm.
And maybe I’m not ready
to tell you where I go afterwards.
The dark glades where I’ve cried out your name,
the lonely window I sat close to for hours
after the halogen glow of your headlights
have long since disappeared from the road.
How I stay tangled like the ribbons
that our limbs seemed to have become
without hesitation or choice,
knowing that a single movement now
can shift me back to this immediacy.
I stay where your hands roamed my back
with a gentleness I’ve never known before,
as if in my skin you felt something sacred,
something you were almost afraid to claim.
You perhaps are staying there now as well,
parted yet your essence left behind,
touching upon a forgotten intimate frequency,
you sensed the vast river raging beneath veins,
the tide permanently coursing with your own.
You knew the surface all too well,
the flesh that helplessly surges
in your scorching proximity,
the invisible flourish of every moan
that ripples across my naked skin
like the crest of a breaking wave.
You have to know what aches beneath,
what still sings of its own accord
long after the passing storm.
And maybe you’re not ready
to tell me where you go afterwards.
The dark glade where you’ve cried out my name,
spelled it against a cold lonely window as if
such a private tracing can summon me
long after we seemed to have slipped
to some blissful outpost beyond our bodies.
How you wanted to say so much
more to me after the lights went out,
and my fingertips softly upon your lips
perhaps kept the both of us from spilling,
I was simply saying we’ll have more time,
this immediate moment should say enough.
We stayed in a companionable silence then,
tangled in a comfort we had never known before,
as if moving would indeed disturb something sacred,
something we were afraid to claim as our own.
And the deeper we seem to travel,
maybe we can say where we go afterwards,
what places our souls always drift among
as we cling to this intimate mutual frequency.
We have to know what lies beneath,
what still sings of its own accord
long after we have held on
through this raging storm.
