Penrose

now we are three
(or perhaps, really, four)
somehow congruent
(but perhaps, not really)

stone, water, wood
we eye each other warily
wondering, trying
to make sense of
where we are each
in relation to the other

unresolved
dynamic
we are changed
even as we are
the same as we
ever were

but for the perspective
(or perhaps, not really)

Vesper Hymn

We are bonded,

arteries connected in a

criss-cross of capillaries.

You throb in my blood;

I pulse in yours, the steady

beat of me against you

(of you within me)

dusking a ruddy sky

with the stretching of

our veins. An evening

breeze slip-slithers across

our tangled limbs, you

trace electric fingers

through my curling hair and

I am flesh

and air

and liquid

turned to stone, arterioles and

venules flared and deepening,

suspended and eternal in those

half-perceived moments

when our hearts seize,

then tremble and rest against

each other, and then at last

decide to beat again,

connected and bonded.

Chirality
I am pushed
(or pulled
or perhaps
I am still)
along this
sinuous
spiraling
system of self
this Möbius
of emotions
this fractal
of feelings
(or fracture
of self or
perhaps I am
still) it is
a pattern a
pattern a
pattern
I must break
before I am broken
(or open to
self or perhaps
I am still)
I cannot dance
these steps I
cannot sequence
these numbers
(or cannot be
self or perhaps
I am still)
yet am I pushed
(or pulled or
perhaps I am still)
along this
sinuous
spiraling
system of self
this Möbius
of emotions
this fractal
of feelings
(or fracture of self
or perhaps
I am
still)

my heart is
flawed by you

no longer able
as it once was

to simply meet
expectations

oxygenation
circulation
purification

I was living
but not alive

until my heart

was awed by you

pas de deux: adagio

you think I
do not see
you searching
for a path
into my heart
your hands rest
against my stony
scars your fingers
clinging, clasping
clawing through
crevices I never
knew were there
(for if I had these, too,
would I have sealed)
you do not see
me watching, wistfully
wondering so
certain you will
quit this path I
hold myself rigid
waiting for you
to abandon me yet
somehow you see
me as I once was
as I would be again
you think I do
not feel you
do not realize
you cannot know
(I cannot let you know)
it is not the wind
caressing your questing
hands it is me
trembling beneath you

spartan

I would lay
my gauze upon
your scars protect you
from a world too bent
on leaching you into
nothing I would
hold you to me
feel you sighing
shifting under me
no one sees you
as I do no one
feels you as I
do I whisper
restraint
even as you sift
into the very
roots of me
restraint
as the bay winds
come laughing
through us
seeing what
I cannot (or
will not)
I am no
longer gauze
and your scars
have long since
healed now we
are threaded through
into a wefting of
me grown into you
you groaning in me
and there is
no restraint as
the bay winds
come laughing
through us
(there never was).

liana

I don’t want
to need you
this way
I don’t need
to want you
this way
or so I would
tell myself
startled that
the vining
I allowed
(youtome)
to decorate
my being
has so quickly
twined onto me
writhed into my
connective tissue
(metoyou)
I am more
accessible now
more supported
yet somehow
off-balance
no longer
independent
or perhaps
no longer able
to shield myself
with independence
even as I struggle
into this new way
of being yet do you
tendril further in
further binding
my heart upon
your heart under
the velvet canopy of
silent September stars
softly I sigh
in wonder that I
need you this way
in amazement that I
want you this way.