Fleeting

In the space where my eye

Kisses my eyelid; there is a river.

With no snow for a splitting beginning

Neither an ocean for a welcoming end.

As my eyelids rest, I see no darkness

Or fireworks of phosphine.

Instead, I sightlessly gaze

At a perpetual river with thousands of streams

Flowing in the movement of you;

In the uninterrupted color of dreams.

The soft rolling of your shoulders

And the sharp bend of your knees.

The ankles I knew I would miss,

And the high-pitched way you sneeze.

The lining of your stomach and what I attempt

To hear of what flutters beneath it.

The marmalade split-second pause

Your body makes as it turns to leave.

I retrieve more sanity in my sleep;

When my eyelids embrace me.

When whom I love, gazes back.

It need not the sun to shine, this river

For it to gleam in gold and silver;

To break in shards of glass sun glitters.

It need not the light in order to appear

To be made of reflection rather than water.

This river, it need not the wind to carry

To retrieve and to hold,

Flower petals and vacant Lili pads

The pulse I gasp and the aching wrath.

Your touch on my neck, my body remembers.

It need not a pebble, this river

For it to swell in patches of ripples

Your laughter exists in the form

Of cold springs;

It resonates to create rhythm

In the form of waves and gentle winks.

In the space where my eye

Kisses my eyelid; there is a river.

In you, darkness I fail to see.

It need not the light, the wind, or a lonesome pebble

To throw me in its currents

-Where my body lays to float.

No life jacket or boat

Or a drifting log for support.

Through the void of pitch-black unconsciousness;

The tint of faraway space in the galaxy.

I blindly journey to reach the river

And place my feet in its waters.

My skin knows when we have arrived.

Surrender my flesh to its reflections

As I float; in the direction of many streams.

Between the flower petals and the wrath

And I expand my arms to feel them.

Where no sun trudges yet the water is still warm

I caress all the beauty I’ve ever found in you.

And it takes me.