Eating Rainbows

Two clouds beneath this sheet of sky
we move
wrapped within an aching wind

A sighing song
guides my lips and teeth
(this storm front of me)
to your funnel neck
where I hold on tight
while you thrash through
the crops and small towns
of our new loving

We pelt each other with raindrops
until your valley thermals crush my breezy leg
taking my breath away
as this sleek, windy shear of you
cuts through my senses

Riding this warm rail of me
you move east and west
toward and away
from that golden spike
that marks the eventual meeting
of these two trains of thought
destined for collision

I turn my thumb into a plow
then windmill my fingers within you
feel the gathering wheat of you
grinding golden in parallel movements
serial cascades of breathy argument
disguised as
flesh against spirit
sex against love
night against day

All words fall away with the storm
and we are left clinging together
suspended where the moist earth and saturated sky
almost meet

and I know it is forbidden to say
I love you
so I begin instead
to eat the rainbow that now glows around you
this secret, tasty gift
of storm and sex and heart
a shadowy, succulent food
I have only come to know
through you

And as we softly drift toward our different sleep
I cannot help but cock an ear
toward the window's open mouth
hoping for a hint of weather
in your tomorrow eyes

It May Be That

Beauty induces an exact distortion
a woman sitting outside a window
the table tilted
biased
coffee cup, purse

all elegantly arranged

her cupola eyes
slivery mouth emitting smoke
a chin that catches light
but not water

Most of all
she laughs while she reads
jots notes

then reaches for her blonde boyfriend
full-armed
embraces him
as he sits next to her

He chews on her laughter
does not wipe his lips

Blues Man

Bluesman

They say he is the best guitarist in Florida
or maybe the entire Southeast

It is a whispered rumor through the crowd
as he hobbles to his folding chair
that fronts the band

His legs betray the slow twist
of a sapling oak
brushed by bears
or hard wind

As if the limbs of the tree
corkscrewed into the windy pattern
instead of urging themselves
slowly out of the grown
into a safe sun

How many weeks
did he sit upright in the hospital bed
in a boy's room
fingering the strings of a small-going-larger-guitar
waiting for the iron rods
that traveled his legs
to form a somewhat sturdy pair of pencils
upon which
he would never dance

Instead now he writes his music into
the sky between the ears of the listeners
(smoking nonchalant, so cool)
he flays at the slick lightning
God's pick in his right hand
a five-fingered wing caressing the neck

A dark angel ruffles blue scratches
from his smoke-hardened throat
he sits like a harpist deity
the man who taught the angels riffs
his hair pulled back
a dark, flowing sky
the Devil's beard, a mute disguise

The music is his forever
no tomorrow
no yesterday
and as his fingers fly before them
they realize
there may never be anything again
like tonight

But only hears it
only he listens
to the sound of God's whisper
above the applause

he does not stand

Poetry Magazine