CARL AND I DRINK TO SMOKE AND LIPS

I soak in scent as the rocks blacken 
and smoke ascends to the moonless starfull 
night, to the first cool air of autumn
and the spent gold coins of apricot leaves.

And you Carl, from the wet tall grasses,
meet me on the broken bison prairie.
And we drink to the songs of lips and the flowers 
of lips and the morning light parting of lips 
kissed to the pink petals of roses and dawns.

This place of lifetimes returning floats 
in smoke amniotic. Let's rise to a birth,
let the stars wheel around our wet 
singing skin new to the world
and steaming in starlight.

Making smoke is what we do,
smoke that lips breathe in the rising 
breath from fires we strike in the stones 
of breasts, torsos hissing the steam 
of love drawn from the breathing coals
in the lattice of living flame.

We tend desire against subzero 
cold. We form the coals in baskets 
of ribs until the hissing stops.
Closing my eyes spins you around 
the sound of my center, where cats yowl 
in the grape vines and virginia creepers.

And my skin glows with creosote, the residue 
of your heat, your flame, your stones, smoldering 
in the moonless starlight turning around 
this endless ring of rocks.


© 2001 by Richard W. Todd

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