The Wake

I
She sits across from me all night engaged
the sounds of her voice, and the crinkles my eyes make toward her breast.

The best state of affairs would have our smiles be white
glazed china masks, thin, the lips painted red.

Beneath our masks would be draperies of flesh, plastic moments of
writhing heat and black tufts of hair. Beneath
our masks would be a locus for this steaming rhythm
of words, bandied through our porcelain mouths.

At the end of the night when she unclasps her bra, I think
she’s lying, but for an inexpressible moment, breathing
into each other’s ears, with our hands immersed in shoulders I
glance to the side and See two cold masks
forlorn on the floor.

II
The bed frame has ceased creaking.
The fluttering aches of her sex
run down my thigh.
I kiss her cheek to rise
back into my self, in the shower where
I am alone, and the hot water pours over me, deafening.

I return to her side and let my wet hair dry in the sweat stained pillows’ caress.
And the car alarm tendrils and quick feet slapping the paths sound through the windows.
She arcs her back to the pressure of my hand, groaning, leaning
her stomach and curly black feathers against my fingers.
I kiss her neck dreaming.

Dreaming that behind this blood flushed fabric of orange and alabaster
Dreaming that if I ply these curtains apart I’ll find distinct spirits gold, invisible, perfect
in every way.

Then dawn. Light takes over this world, steam unfurls from the gutters
by concrete where on frost laden grass blades the withered
leaves of an oak tree breathe like embers and smolder.

And under this nascent sun that singes the shedding of life,
I find my shoulder screwed into the nape of her neck, her slack jaw, sleepy exhales.
Whatever symphonic achievements our early hot skin can pull off,
they have the exploded status that last night’s dreams deflate to
in the disruption of my zinc blue serv-o-tron alarm, 6:30.