White Flowers

i

How can one capture the breath

of a night drenched in white flowers

and the talk of a thousand steps 

that led to your doorway

 – moments of sorrow and joy –

my hands moulding your skin like clay

your taste sticking to my tongue like toffee

in my mind's eye, a kiss lingers 

a moment of rapture 

caught between the sheets like

two doves thrashing against the sky

in the folds of my skin that night has left its mark

drenched 

in soft kisses 

and the whispers 

of a thousand suns

caught

 

in a single breath of sorrow and joy.

ii

Time flows like a river

beneath these perfect thoughts–

they rock and ebb like a boat adrift

and try as I might I cannot reel them in 

they linger on the water –  

like a kiss, on a quiet afternoon. 

iii

 

Out of beauty and sorrow  

the darkness fashioned me a lover

a man of flesh and bone and heart – so fine  

 

and it made me weep hard 

for everything that I had left behind 

and everything which may not lie ahead.


iv

For, like the morning bird  

who has all but forgotten – how to fly and sing –

thrashing about in the darkest corners of a new day

 

I have nothing left to guide me 

but the light of fading stars.