“Wake up, my darling.” I sing your name,
catch it on my tongue to savor lemon
vowels and briny oysters, reminders
of clean sweat on skin. Morning light drips

through the fingers of a marble dryad in
the round, warm tones of a clarinet.
My wake-up call sounds again but half-
heartedly, lost as I am in the robin’s egg

blue of your breathing. You blink into
the day and a smile; ‘good morning’ brushes
past my cheek on wings. I serve the night
before in steaming mugs and we sip

like second skin, ones that will let us say goodbye,
the frogs, the little ones,
like the woman washing her clothes by the stream
jeans dampened, submerged

natural passion, poetry continues our pleasure,
opens the belly-button of the world surprising children,
curls in her eyes, a breast view, she catches my scent
with her fingers, hears my skin

no - deeper: that second skin is space
the poems a necessary nucleus, with flashing phrases
opening the dusk where she disrobes
by the lilac river