With its well-known deceptions
And its naked betrayal,
Told to resist its repetitive insinuation—
Sinew, bone and blood, the pattern
Ravenous and perfect, storm and flood.
The most outrageous of all whispers,
Implying humid want is actually need,
The treason at the basis of it all.
If we sever the tether, we will fall
Like an astronaut weary of her lifeline,
Once freed of her anchor and oxygen,
Careening toward a cloud of stars—
I’ve avoided this folly and done the opposite.
What a discovery! That if I tug
On the rope as hard as muscle and blood
Can make flesh pull, the rope springs loose.
Severing the tether requires
Meditation or some similar bluff,
As if plugging ears will turn the whispers off.
Instead I’ve spread the spirit of the skin
Into every pore, all marrow, every cell—
Made this rotting vessel into a pleasure mill.
The apex of this fleshy metamorphosis
Is a rhythm of climax and despair.
It fills all chambers with a slow, unceasing
Stream, ending its pressure with release,
Then building to begin again.
And when I pause to eye the room
And smell our sweat and effort,
I wonder, briefly, how the air might taste
If my body were to bow and take its leave—
I suppose it might be clean and sweet,
Not blemished by the bite of blood,
The narcotic residue of sex.
Instead I stretch my slackened rope.
My arms and legs swing free. The knot, I test.
And tethered to this flesh I yet remain.
I choose once more to build, begin again,
And stain the air with what the skin wants next.
EJR
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