June 19

Earth fills her lap with pleasure and yearning;
I'm above them both,
Staring into world's end.
There is no smell here, no sound,
The taste only of teeth,
Two-day-old coffee burn.

The orphan ascends again:
The crown of stone bears up –
Each step reveals another half-mile,
It seems – fighting the clouds, glorious
And terrible, borne on the wind,
Which enfold and blur me;
Rough turning hands to face the descent, to tell me
Here is a temporary heaven.

Mist lingers behind the gale
To hold me in her long arms;
She chills me,
Evaporates on the backs of my hands –
Now she's in my capillaries,
Tracing her way back to the source.

I won't say I love her,
But I keep her in my heart,
Which is how love works anyway
The way I learned it.

It's not in my mouth,
The tips of my fingers,
But the occasional heartbeat –
Once every couple hundred, I guess –
That takes the taste from my tongue
Twice as well as any cup of coffee.