~ comme l’eau ~

The red couch, my black boots draped over layers of dust,

on the edge of work benches and stacks of blond wood – entrance

to the still cut of space I seek everywhere, rarely find,

a kind of home

firm and hollow enough to curl into, permeated

with you. Focused by the nearness of a blade, away from me as you will

be always, yet in these moments the water of my thought absorbs,

slides gently around your body’s sure, lean motions – in no way

containing, just following your rhythms with my hand, words

fall in patterns never before discovered – coming upon myself

through the doorway of another. An open-mouthed creature becomes

again two trees leaning towards each other across

vertical, pine-colored light, and in a gesture, offhand and close

to tender – “I need your opinion” – you invite me, beside you without

reaching. My eyes invest in lines and curves of grain – cross-sections

of once growing branches, again push into sky,

if only as earth imagines – stratified oak,

fading amber to near white – or as river,

colors rippling perhaps waves flowing between

the trees, the same current feeds and parts – upon the heat of flesh,

the blade stops, searching for words similar to water.