oui

I.

a tooth translucent: a jagged thing corking up

     Scissoring & despondent

  find me under the tongue of sunshine

figuring uselessly in the jigsaw of sofa cushions

      & spurting free like prose & your breath

(the sea, a salty, rising thing)

     Lift me like the afternoon, surprise

 the air tastes briefly like sugar, & cold

     in your mouth, I am heavy

 I am the insistent beating of pearl marbled moth wings

this tinkling in your foresight, the last hesitation

        a bird points south.

II.

I love you

 I hold up your face like a mirror

       an apple in the light: Eve

    examines. The thing about beauty

 is it’s always a promise, never a fulfilling

               it drains, it greeds.

  In my hands I cup your jaw

your cheekbones hissing under my fingertips

       this beautiful, heavy thing

hard under the skin, light to touch

  I hold it tenderly, like a child

                        you close your eyes.

III.

    : to know, my god: knowing

mostly, deeply, a person

                 spinning & multiplicitous

         a thing that dazzles, a thing

   that slides down the curve of your cheek in the rain.