Un-Skinny Dipping

Her whiteness, illuminated by a motion sensor light
stood out in the darkness
with all the fragility of a lighting bolt in the sky.
Fit among the stars and moon
if not fit among the beach by day
she pined for the cold embrace
and weightlessness of water.
Unpreparedness, if not several champagne flutes,
had delivered the opportunity
to escape the buzzing well-lit hive
carved into the cliff and the ability to
shorten a quick expanding bucket list.
She lingered on the ebbing proscenium
with a spot light at her back.

The fabric of the loudness that kept her away,
the crudeness that undermined expectations,
and the tight fitting pomposity she knowingly confused for confidence
are shed and casting shadows on her footprints.
Finally alone, she doesn’t see me.
Tucked in the folds of her dress, the shadows on the beach,
the overlapping waves silently applauding
as she, the thunder, breaks
the rolling foamy waves
with a joyous jump.

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Pierced

In that moment she was sin
that appeared fallen
due to her juxtaposition.
As a child she wanted
to wear glasses –
then took mine off.
“I don’t want to scratch them”
Morgana the butterfly
that flapped her wings and the ground
perched in that brief moment
on top of me.
The dividers rose like
a confessional.
Perhaps I reminded her of herself.
Two thin silver bands
hung like bull rings
but felt like smoke circles
against my face.
She who named herself
after books she read
in the hopes of becoming myopic.
It was all too much
for me. So I laughed.
We laughed.
She had moved here from California
for her mother.
So when she is healed, I will never see her again.

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Objectification

Don’t pretend it isn’t here.
Each long swooping curve
may not have the depth
of noble truth and virtue
but it does break the light
into something more bearable –
a steaming hot tub to ease
your body into.

Gasp through the steam
like a fish begging for food.
Above the surface is the entire
world, but without the surface
it would merely be another bowl.
The warm embracing lovers
another castle,
bookshelves, and leather chairs,
and rugs
all just treasure chests
and colored rocks.

Beg for the food,
and let it enter your world
filled with cherished objects.
Grasp it firmly
a hand full of flesh
and soft satin curtains
pulled from the window.
Our world finally visible
to the people passing by
but they do not see us
because the cold
wind has caught
in it the whirling dervish
that stings the cheek
and narrows the eye.

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The Political Animal

He pats
a slow beat
on canvas so tight
it could be a drum.
His brushing fingers
leaving invisible
lines in the natural oils
of her body,
barely clinging to existence.
Creation and destruction
in the valley of her lower back.

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Agni

Her Eyes
There is a green pasture in Italy
littered with Vestal columns
-broken and profane
they point back to a community
that no longer remains.

That greenness surrounds obsidian
with its verdant Sylvan bloom
with more authority than kings or even Gods.
The center of this garden recalls a deeper doom:
A rock from which flight is impossible
The child of Tarpeia’s womb.

And when she blinks poetry is silenced.

Her Skin
There is Dresden porcelain in her skin
forged from Augustus’ private stock
of the cleanest white and softest soft.
Her heart beats shyly within –
I trace the master sculpture with an eye
if not a hand. A brief passing by
to sooth the conquering demand.

When we touch, she averts her eyes.

Her Lips
She never blows bubbles but
She chews cinnamon gum
So her words come fromVolcanal.
It is a brief reminder that she is ancient
and naked somewhere under there.
Sometimes she sings to the delight of the world
and her heart pours from her mouth
with the molten golden words.

She doesn’t smoke because it gives you wrinkles.

Her Hands
Her hands have the curious habit
of touching everything –
They are constant vigilant explorers
searching for any light
to break the thick dense fog
of unimaginative reality
that clouds her sight.
They are so cold even in summer
that I can only imagine they search
for some towering lighthouse
to steal some warmth.
Ten tiny promethean digits
that can tickle ivory or children.

She plays with her gold ring when she’s nervous.

Her
And could you imagine that
Heraclitean furnace at her core.
The way she worries that it
burns out of control.
She is anxious often but never sad
like energy itself
and to look at her you would never
understand how she couldn’t adore
the way she laughs uncontrollably,
sighs absent-mindedly or
snores only when she sleeps alone
and presses her pillow so tightly to her face.

She prefers the company of humans.

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Karmen Zuttra

A kiss that turns away
Tantric prayer
As if it were an eclipsing moon.
The shadows in her eyes stay
Broken by her auburn hair,
a big bang theory’s boon
To remove the God
So visible in her every turn
Or her stare.

A heart to prove sexual theology
the mind to learn how a naked pair,
Venus and Johnny Appleseed,
Decided to fall in love too soon
and how history is just an essay
without a thesis.

She never ceases to amaze,
How such an infinity still has a center
And how a masterpiece can bleed
Through skin so fair.
How her finger tips play
heart strings like a piano
Or how God must move comets
According to a plan.
Her soul knows the count of the dessert sands
she counts them during the nights
When her hands are deep in a prayer
that God might bestow
Enough mercy to make her suffering
Worth the knowing.

It is in her suffering, not her beauty,
that I share
Unity imposed by blind fate.
And it is not by choice, but by duty
that I care
For divinity’s confined state.

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