Five-legged pocket spiders, knuckled

starfish, grabbers of forks, why

do I forget that you love me:

your willingness to button my shirts,

tie my shoes-even scratch my head!

which throbs like a traffic jam, each thought

leaning on its horn. I see you

 

waiting anyplace always

at the ends of my arms-for the doctor,

for the movie to begin, for

freedom-so silent, such

patience! testing the world

with your bold myopia: faithful,

ready to reach out at my

softest suggestion, to fly up

like two birds when I speak, two

brown thrashers brandishing verbs

like twigs in your beaks, lifting

my speech the way pepper springs

the tongue from slumber. O!

 

If only they knew the unrestrained

innocence of your intentions,

each finger a cappella, singing

a song that rings like rain

before it falls-that never falls!

Such harmony: the bass thumb, the

pinkie's soprano, the three tenors

in between: kind quintet x 2

rowing my heart like a little boat

upon whose wooden seat I sit

strummed by Sorrow. Or maybe

 

I misread you completely

and you are dreaming a tangerine, one

particular hot tamale, a fabulous

banana! to peel suggestively,

like thigh-high stockings: grinning

as only hands can grin

down the legs-caramel, cocoa,

black-bean black, vanilla-such lubricious

dimensions, such public secrets!

Women sailing the streets

with God's breath at their backs.

Think of it! No! Yes:

let my brain sweat, make my

veins whimper: without you, my five-hearted

fiends, my five-headed hydras, what

of my mischievous history? The possibilities

suddenly impossible-feelings

not felt, rememberings un-

remembered-all the touches

untouched: the gallant strain

 

of a pilfered ant, tiny muscles

flexed with fight, the gritty

sidewalk slapped after a slip, the pulled

weed, the plucked flower-a buttercup!

held beneath Dawn's chin-the purest kiss,

the caught grasshopper's kick, honey,

chalk, charcoal, the solos teased

from guitar. Once, I played

viola for a year and never stopped

 

to thank you-my two angry sisters,

my two hungry men-but you knew

I just wanted to know

what the strings would say

concerning my soul, my whelming

solipsism: this perpetual solstice

where one + one = everything

and two hands teach a dawdler

the palpable alchemy

of an unreasonable world.