Rest Your Elaborations

for Jess

To the Nth degree
intensity simply

disappears into
the body

we can never see
complete,

but a dancing flame
we know is

real. Desire
is not something

to sit around
and discuss at length:

The signpainter
sings and his brush

goes crooked.
The body is

a flame that is forever
a sign. It can

never go crooked
because it contains

all crooks.The poem
can end wherever

we please. These words
will not be an extended

lecture. My tone
(and the desire

it carries like a dove)
is meant to please

a part of you
that does not know

it can be.
Who am I, but

an imagined snowflake
from the north

your heart will melt?
When dusk fills the bowl

of sky with black
against which stars

can show,
only then

will your favorite
garment wrap itself

in golden threads
around the burning wick

of my absent sun.
Only then will longing be

a magnificant presence
prone before

our perpetual speaking
but for naught, moving

like Roman lovers
in the seance of

an unmade bed, knowing
just what's pressed against,

the paradox of pairing
come as one, felt as one

apart from one another, yet
doubled and held close

as tone, the skin and bone
of just the two, as done.


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