by Paul Hina
and tastes
the knees, lays wreaths of kisses across
the holy land of your thighs, sinks all
souls toward the pilgrimage to the well,
the water of your darkest softness, the
moon of skin above the void where
miracles meet for music and meditation
126
your eyes—so brown and muddy deep—
implore me to bend those pinkest lines
of lips, to press my softest—almost
imperceptible—hands down the silk
of your hair, flush the back of the neck
with wisps of kisses, and shake the tree
of your body free of the fall, out of the
woe of winter, and blush back the color
with joyful jumps of smiles and deepest
breaths of this flesh, this flash of fullest
fruit bursting across the floor of your slow,
silent dancing
127
my kiss tightens around her ankle,
a dash of flowers covers her skin
with the scent of roots coming
undone in my mouth
my lips climb up her sweetest stems,
peeling and tasting every petal,
—the color and the texture—tulips
and tendrils tumbling to tickle my
thirsty throat
128
you watch me with want stains
on your fingers
but all i want is to touch her—
that other one, the one with
sadness pouring all the way down
her face,
don't i want to put that face in
my hands, push my lips near her
eyes,
let her see what love
tastes like
129
when the spring breezes come undone
it is something like the sound the moon
makes when you walk away from me—
a kiss still wet on your
lips, the warmth of my hands
hanging to those pendulums
of hips
130
you, baby blue shirt, head sunk into
french poetry, a soft red glow on your
nails as the one hand wrestles the other
to haphazardly tie those soft strings of the
hair that holds the perfect puppet of your head
up for the sun to catch a corner of your goldest
smile,
and your joie de vivre keeps the head dancing,
dancing—this head—all the way to the dreams
where i might touch a sliver of the sun from
the space in those pinkest lips, the drenching
of light that might fall from that kiss,
and that hair could drip whiter whispers all over
my chest and shoulders, staining my skin with
the scandal of auburn's secrets—in french
131
your bare shoulders, smooth and
clear in the sun's brightest yellows
and a tree casts a shadow behind you
that leans toward you in the breeze
as the spring magnolias rain down on
you
and the whole scene takes a deep
breath of your the hair as it brushes
like elsewhere stems growing from
those shoulders into the wisps and
fronds of the sun washing over the
sins of your skin
132
i can hear the lazy, french dither of your
voice—a morning sound, gauzed by lace
and fog—
and the thick cotton of our sleepy
webs sticks to our lips and fingers
and as the sun breathes its way into
the gossamer streaks of your hair—still
caught behind the sheer wall of our dream—
we take the deepest breath of this water
and carry it with us through the most pedestrian
of days to drink from when we're dying of the
depth of these most delicious delusions we
share
133
the haze of the rain is a prayer, a silent
murmuring against the spiritual ground where
we walked, aglow with love,
and your lilt of laughter lays my body down
across this wash where the water weaves a rhythm
like hands traveling the skin with wet, waiting
fingers—feminine fingers—long and liquid with lulls
and sleep singing some sex against this imperfect pile
of older flesh
134
her legs are sweet and long
and golden,
standing high on the shine of
her smallest smile,
the spring blooming beneath
her feet,
and the modesty of the colors,
the fragility of the stems standing
for perkier petals,
sings love songs to somewhere rain,
to future's fingers,
and she touches the back of her neck,
raising her head,
opens up her hair with the hands of
hesitant winds,
and tilts her face up to share some
science with the sun
135
you were crumbling into a shiver
and the gray outside
soaks up the glow of all faces,
except yours,
and as the heat from your cup rises
to your lips,
a kiss happens
that warms the room
and all our thoughts matriculate
toward your fingers
and another shiver
gets shaken away
while you shine
136
spring's leaves have returned as hands
that touch the wind, squeeze with the
tenderness of a memory that whispers,
dreams of old touches, leans on the sleep
we use to fall under when we kiss,
caught in the eternity of these wisps
of spring's breeze,
hiding in the heart,
holding secrets of the sunlight from these
conniving clouds
137
your hands hunt for hiccups, hover over
hurts, heal the dimming lights of the heart
with forgiving fingers, feminine flutters across
dreams, climb the stairs of this dull life and
press flowers from your feet, turning gray
chaos into a kaleidoscope of colors where
old words, and blurry kisses, come alive again,
blow from your lips like poems dripping
from your fingertips, like cold rain drops
descending on my naked back and shoulders
138
i've held it for you, carried it
cupped in my hands like caught
rain,
i have touched its lips every night
with the fingers of dreams, unfurling
old kisses, unfolding them like pressed
flowers, spring things that hold color
long after they're gone,
but the ghosts are fading, the colors
are daubs without definition now,
and my mind can't reach far enough
to find that face—that smile—that sent
me so many shivers, so many stars
for secret keeping, but even their lights
are only ghosts, an illusion of a shine
that has burned out long ago, unfurling for
no one, unfolding into nowhere, kissless
139
you don't know how the fragility of your
eyes—their softness, the conniving quality
of their size and color—makes rain bounce
on consciousness waters, pierces imagination
countries with the sex on your skin
you don't know the first thing about how
long and lovely those curves of legs can make
mush of men's hearts, the way they wrap around
the mind, make mischief with our imagination
hands
you don't know that those lips are full of dreams,
soft fantasies where kisses are caught and tenderly
delivered to mouths that have been lacking the buzz
of the lilts of your breath
140
i have a thousand pieces to my heart,
jagged parts
and parts with soft, round edges of lips,
stretching all the way out like roses from
my chest, leaving blood stains on her knees
(and then a vine cuts away another
piece to whisper in her ear, 'you can have
a piece of my heart, you can press a thorn
for a poem, cut to the quick of this puzzle
of palpitations for cities of passion, worlds of
wobbly knees, where comets meet kisses, and
stars meet sex head-on at the center of the galaxy
where your heavenly body can find mine with fingers
and legs, mouths and memory) smearing
petals like great puddles of paintings
141
sadness stands sweetly atop your face,
filling out your features with the fattest
pools of eyes about to swallow the world
in their sweet, dewy surrender,
and you'll never know a poem was
composed for you,
strings were strung and plucked,
songs were hummed
just to see you smile,
and when you did,
we all melted away in the light
of your incredible indifference
142
i was lulled by the moon in your
eyes, laid down to sleep, a hand
admiring your knee, listening to
oceans with my ear on your
softest earth of thigh,
and i dreamt of stars and snow,
and flowers peeking out for a taste,
a tingle, a trollop over the trickles
that slide down the breath i bend
over your brilliant body—
brightening all the lights inside me
143
at the first blush of may, you have
already imagined her eyes, watched
the waves of water flow over her
hips into her thighs, your hands have
memorized her hands, and measured
her breath from the rising of her chest
—her breasts succumbing to softer
kisses—just to know the rhythm of
spring, the home of each color's
heartbeat
144
you have me tied—tight in your
torrential hair—made my heart
twisted in the vines of your softest
limbs, tripping over the lost languages
that have been hiding in your mouth,
words waking up from your lips,
lapping up every poem like eating half-
bitten kisses before they float away
on the fragrance of your
