one night in september in a dark room

one night in september in a dark room

your beard moves in a shush.

your eyes are everything,

we have to begin with this.

the bramble scratch of your thicket

fingers across my breast. divinity.

for this i do everything, the staying

when hating is hard like a bullet,

like a blood clot, a dagger, a silver sword-

a pen that signs goodbye.

bright eyes, glow from the bed like a fox

in our den. the room is violins

and like the teenagers we were

we hear them at the same time and they keen

of still here. still body to body.

place this wafer in your mouth

still your eyes the bright place.

your breath on my mouth

the light like a slip through the shades

the cars outside alone

a motor hurls through space.

a bright star in the camping sky

the owl call from bent branch

when the suburban streets penetrated

my pussy harder than you could wash away

your eyes bring the curious cry of thing in the wood.

you left a bruise inside my thigh

i love you, i love you, i love you.

old porches, mississippi houses underwater,

pieces of fossil no one buys

imprinted fish into rock.

your heart a canyon full of the wild world.

a list of things so mundane they'd make you cry.

a list of things so impossibly wonderous they'd understand why

i love you, i love you, i love you.

maggie may ethridge