Lingering on Twilight

We stayed up all night drinking and now you’re sleeping and I’ve got a cigarette smoking between my lips and through the spreading fingers of its blue smoke I see the first rays of sunlight as they trickle inside the seams of the curtain and fall across your body, buffered by the clothes you forgot to remove. I untied your shoes, pulling the laces until the loops unraveled, slipped them off and set them aside. I ran my hand along your leg, felt the muscles twitch, you danced too much tonight, didn’t take time to rest, now you feel it, and my hands rise and fall with your chest like catching the tide one small wave at a time before something stronger sweeps it aside.

I tap the ash away, watch a plume of smoke slither upward through the morning haze, and undress myself until I’m skin deep in silence split every few seconds by the soft hiss and sigh of your breath. I slide into you and over you, feel every part of my body begging for every part of yours, separated by fiber and slumber. Your hair smells like sandalwood and patchouli, the back of your neck tingles my chin as I rest my head on your shoulder, and my hand draped across your body rises and falls until dreams obscure the thin folds of cotton and fur between us.

Disturb Me Not

Let me hang this paper on my doorknob
neither knock nor enter, I am dreaming
let me lie here with my eyes closed
my soul pressed to your memories
imaging for a moment when I open
my eyes I’ll see you beside me
let me hold my pillow to my chest
the pulse in my thumb a surrogate
for your heartbeat, let my headache
throb in my mind like drumming
your breathing, pull another blanket
atop me, pretending its warmth
is your body pressed into mine
let me hold my hands around these dreams
do not stir me from my imagination
even as I witness morning light
pry aside my eyelids, let me shut them
taste a moment longer your lips
as we wake together, let me remember
what a bed is meant to be, remember
what is the grass before we’re taught
each sliver is a blade, before daisies
turn to weeds. Let me pull the petals
counting in my half-sleep still dreaming
disturb me, disturb me not.

Alphabet Soup

Once upon a time I began using this website called Plinky that gives you daily writing prompts. Longtime readers might even recall some of my Plinky posts; they always had a little lightbulb at the bottom, indicative of the fact I had posted them through Plinky.

In any case, one of the prompts I didn’t find very lengthy, so I never posted it here: The challenge was to write a piece of poetry using only words that began with the letter S. It was a fun exercise. I enjoyed it.

The idea, however, never left me, and I decided someday I would write a slew of new poems, each of them directed by a single letter only. (I suspect X, Z, and Q will be challenging.) I’ve written a few more of these, and now that I’ve got a small number of poems amassed, I figured I’d share them here–and I encourage you to do the same!

Some day I’ll have all twenty-six poems written. Perhaps you’ll beat me there?

The Touch of You

The sweet smell of sweat as you cool down and I lay down beside you
The touch and smell of your hair as I rest my head upon yours
Your skin glistens with beads of strong light
Skin to skin, we close our eyes and rest throughout the night

For His Heart is Mine

For his heart is mine
I shall find no sleep tonight
Held in his embrace
Lost amid his dreaming hands
His skin upon mine
My breath for his body
As sleep descends us both
When morning comes
For his heart is mine
I shall find myself alone another day

Excerpted from To the World I’ll Be