a tiger climbs the umbels of stars

I.

i can only guess how to unclasp
this bodice, bodied against
a hammered wind

your songs to heaven perhaps,

beneath the certain thinness of skin,
spinning you away
over the Atlantic's rasp of lips


II.

how i want to go beyond the sharp surface of you

down the clavicle's coition,
shoulder (blade)
to breast (bone),
thorax to viscus

all the spectrums
cupped between your hands
felt by your eyes.

tell me about the color red.


III.

the delicacy
of heat

baptizes
one
to another.

it's breathing-fire
heliographed
in the
waves

of your hair
tender
corpulent
intrusive

inflections that sing
undressing
each hanging limb
in this
coppice,

i wait
by God's grace
to fall forward
hoping that what
we desire is what
God wants for us.


IV.

looking up, i see
strange things in the sky
a tiger climbing the umbels of stars
somewhere a sabbath candle is burning
the flame flickers, the wax melts

both move like the ocean
pulling the shore closer
to the moon or is it the sun?


V.

where space reaches out
and changes us under
foreign skies, we notice
the shape of our mouths
and how much
we use our hands
to gather paradise.

we become the sky,
a crow-blue silhouette,
with no edge
to its love.

in silence,
like winter's pulse
i blush
and think
you beautiful.