A LOVE NOTE TO A SIREN


a soft wet flesh-remembered kiss
lies salted in my mouth.

our teeth clattered;
tongues together sought to fill
skin-spilled cravings --
waves of starvings long declared
as listened, watched, but never dared.

this grip, this heat, your breath
are all a-dream
with lying, drowning chastity
and understanding truth.
my fantastic ravings seem to be
more watering, more youthful than
the few stark interludes i feel
await us otherwise for real.

our lives are overgrown
and thick as island woods

where tangling on some fallen tree,
we search for virtue
through the limbs --
but fear is all i see:
a joyous fear of casting off alone
from friendships into frothing floods
to catch some moving flesh and bone.

so smooth, this
hungry tension cannot last --
a tethered thorn of prescience
skims the surface of my thought:
i could with purpose bore
through stormripped tides of longing,
only to become a shag unwanted monster
washed dumb upon a gritted shore --

abandoned by your silent calling songs.

but how your soft wet swimming kiss
would still lie in my mouth!
long after limbs and lungs
had fought to fill
your sudden-naked depths --

where swims desire i once declared
as listened, watched, but never dared.