XVI.

hands like bells swing in steeple sleeves
waving mad ringing waves holler hey!
she spins back maybe she whirls like leaves
running up running (puff) Oh I had to say

Stay or come back or tell me yes now
cause love's like some afternoon sunday flower
vased and wilting down since anyhow
it was picked quick when your smile was power

and your shoes were kicking your feet off down
the sidewalk, down the grass, the cruel street
stretching its claws at your summer frown
and your shoes leaving, your legs and your feet

leaving me like that and I had to say wait
I want you some time I do to stay til it's too late

XVII.

She knocks at dawn my wary door,
explains the light and lonely share.
She breathes my skin. I break her hair
with clumsy fingers. Wanting more

than time or touch she works my core
like weaving some new design,
like driving some different kind
of beast from the meadow to the moor.

I find myself falling open before
her lips opening like a window
and her hands like hope, revealing
and spilling my spears on our first floor.

She spreads the pieces of her hair on my hollow pillow.
I mend the forces of my grasp with her sudden healing.

XIII.

I am too tired to spell in words the corners
of her arms, fingers and too beautiful skin.
Their smooth glory splashes pictures recollecting.

Her closed eyes expectant dream my kiss
which hovers waiting as a smile reflecting,
boggled this beauty snuggles so aptly within.

Joyously I ache that my arms can warm hers,
that I can sniff in my beard the dew of her mouth
and as easily as breathing quell doubting's shivers.

I have forever felt her nestle to my gathering touch,
forever circled by the delicate clenches of her wrists.

XIX.

I have fallen closely along your skin's sleek tone,
bearing into my journeys your eyes's warm lines
and fragrance, feeling in my tinder the fire
which together we kindle in each other's dreams.

We have become two lovers lying softly blessed
with each our minds filled fully in our hearts.
We share the same breath and learn the wire
together stretched singing between each other's dreams.

We shall become two lovers lying quietly pressed
together as one, dreaming in each other's hearts.

XX.

My mouth wants the flesh of your thighs,
your nipples' feminine attention
as you stand on your toes to kiss me.
And I can fill your skin with my tongue's tip,
with my teeth tug love's ache in your hips
and you hug my need's urge and surge with me
through pleasure's gift and sweat's redemption.

My mouth takes each of your closed eyes
with tender intensity, tender invention,
breathing new ways to kiss you as you lift me
again with the magic energy of your lips,
enclose me again in your singing grip.
My hands drink each inch your skin can give me.
My mouth sucks the marrow of your affection.

XXI.

I'm afraid to believe in your love,
its constancy through separate time.
Something under my skin grows
while I know I've done enough looking.

I'm trying to apply all the lessons
my heartaches have taught me,
proceed with caution into new emotion,
but your true desire renders this needless.

What I considered my mistakes then
was but history's rejection of my giving
to anyone but you, who only
among them all can ever receive.

I never meant to doubt you, but my faith
has been so often broken I'm afraid to believe

XXII.

Excellent wheels whirl their flashed glances
faced to the wind with chips of color,
calling kids to do want-aching dances:
One hand stabs, another tugs mother.

She's among the perfect cabbage and marigolds,
the shocks of wheat and corn ears ribboned
"Best of Show" in purple, yellow, indigo;
the breads and blankets, farm's bounty given.

Rodeo smells mix in the dust of wind
with the broken echoes of the auctioneer
and the bingo caller and the cattle pens
where dad looks over the hogs and steers.

The whirlygigs spin with the indian jewelry,
humming color tunes and chiming silver rings.

XXIII.

We look at all of the hills as we glide,
our shadows tracing weather, shapes of bells
tolling thunder down the plains. We ride
the cushioned rolling of the hills. The spells

of rain and fog, of hail and wind, are like
the grip of hands to us, or a lover's words.
We look at all of the hills we pass and strike
some with hot light, some like dark birds.

Some days we streak high and wispy overhead
to see around the earth's blue curve and sweep
with shadow the hills our rains have fed.

Lazy as the breeze, some days we curl and sleep,
filling out the dreams of men in milky beds,
dreaming of the hills and hills' secrets we keep.

XXV.

My old forms quake under new designs
with stress unbalanced and the bridges raised;
her ship steams in on the river dawn.

The pink-streaked surface curls in gliding lines
which break like music, little singing waves,
on my flood-wall's watch, on my beach's lawn.

And the tugs lumber humming from the mist,
taut lines dripping dew to her proud bow.
In from the sea, she seeks my faithful stones.

I hold the rope's loose loops in my stupid fist,
thinking knots her sails could never allow,
feeling my foundations sway in my tight bones.

The ship shudders huddling up in my cobbled cove.
The bridges connect for the traffic of the city's love.

XXVI.

Until indignant night shall progress its list
and the raging infrequent hammers obey,
I stay stunned with the fall wind's kiss
where the young hound's eye cuts a moonray.

I caught her first-tossed rainbow in my lead fist
like a sad swan swims or a cloud glides,
giving its new impression a wishful twist,
its surface to its unseen undersides.

My ferryboat fingers played the bells of the copper bay
while the tad-pole man flung his tall-walled tides
at my engines, at my rudder bending the water away
from her holy face and its chimes and its prides.

I slid into her warm wall's joy and clamored like thunder.
She screamed, raining her bliss and our pleasure's quick wonder.

XXVII.

I find my peace between your merciful arms,
in the grace of your good giving.
I sow my futures in your loyal warmth,
in the faith of your receiving.

The anxious doubt of my worth melts before you
as I become loved and learn loving again.
The pity-sieged city you free the doors to
and the countryside heals me for loving again.

Once windy visions hauled my seeds to the sky
and I wept rain from the fruitless cloud-shapes.
Now I write plans for your hope's honest eye
and paint poems on our actual landscapes.

I find my peace between your merciful arms.
I sow my futures in your loyal warmth.