Sometimes I wish I could feel
how it feels to you when, over
and over, my conversation turns
to another lover, usually one
particularly, and you say, it is ok,
you desire my happiness, and you
think she is terrific, but I know myself
to be petty sometimes and when she
talks about him my heart clenches;
so, my comfort, my lover,
does yours? Would you tell me?
There is an opaqueness between us
that is my doing, I fear; what was
once a clear window I have scratched
and abraded thoughtlessly, unaware
of what I did to your heart;
can I become a better man,
one who polishes away the cloudiness
instead of smearing the glass even more?

Sometimes I use the wrong tool.
I thought I was building
a more solid place, putting in
floor joists and subfloor,
filling in the structure.
And then, what you said
opened my eyes differently
and I find in my hand
a chisel and mallet,
piles of debris around me
from where I have been
undercutting the space
between us. Everything shifts;
I realize how childish and petty
my concerns were, and now,
my beloved, all I desire
is to choose the right tool,
secure the correct materials,
and rebuild what I tore away
in unawareness.

Across the room, my three
lovers, my delight, comfort,
and Beloved, sit, close together
in conversation, about what
I don’t know, unnecessary to know,
and I see from a distance
mutual respect and admiration
and you, all of you at once
look up at me, and in your eyes
I see myself reflected, for a moment
as you see me, through the lens
of your affection and love
and suddenly my heart
is entirely too large for this chest,
I am dizzy with joy and humility
that all of you love me,
that my life has brought me
through every bit of anguish
to this point, this evening;
the rest of the room of people
oblivious to my revelation,
to my certainty that my desire
to grow old with each of you
is an adventure only beginning;
I am larger than I can be,
and coming back to myself I find
your eyes, and yours and yours,
where I get lost repeatedly,
now are places where
I am finally, completely found.

Your other lover violated agreements,
yours and mine, and I am so angry
angry at him for what I see as
childish impulsiveness, and angry
at myself for judging, knowing
that you love him, and it is wrong
for me to say what I’ve said so far
but I’ve said it, I was angry
and you told me later,
I liked it when you got angry.
I wrote him a harsh email.
I never, never want to hurt you,
and I have, and I will again and again
and again, because, because my Beloved
I desire to grow old with you.
It is inevitable that every so often
I will once again do something
that pulls out your old wounds
into the stinging air and light
of the now-space between us.
I only hope that you still,
after however many times there are,
you still look at me with those eyes
heavy with desire, shy to hold my gaze
that burn clean through me
and wipe out everything else
because in the end, only your eyes matter.

Reality is not ok
when it means I don’t
get to see you enough

Reality is not ok
when I have to imagine
your face

Reality is not ok
when we can’t always
communicate easily

What keeps me going
is knowing that maybe,
someday, all those things
will no longer be reality.

I come back always
to our desires
in both cases, still
unfolding, wings opening
chrysalises peeling open
discarded but useful once;
my desire for you,
yours for me, for truth
in your body, for completion
of long-distanced pains;
my desire to be whole
to enclose you fully
to make a safety-construct
for your blossoming, your
unfurling, your feeding
on the nectar of your own flower.

Tonight we will not
sleep together
but nonetheless will sit
in deepest intimacy
sharing the past day’s events
anticipating skin touching soon
each time, wings a little larger
flight a little surer
and when I sit across
from you this evening
your radiance will surge
as always, almost blinding
my heart’s eyes.

I would have it no other way.

It’s your presence with me
that I most crave,
however you show up,
sometimes exhausted
from work and school, sometimes
in a mood, sometimes with
health concerns no amount
of my wishing can overcome;
and sometimes, sweetheart,
you show up in your body
and we end up skin to skin
lips to lips, your eyes looking
into mine, my heart glowing;
my body responds to your desire
time changes some, and after
your head rests on my shoulder,
your breathing sliding into sleep
and I have a sudden view
of time compressed, my much older self
still here in this moment,
hearts connected still, then,
and I lose whatever words
there might have been
to tell you how that feels
so instead, I rest my cheek
against the softness of your hair
and listen, gratefully,
to each breath you take,
because that is another moment
you lie in my arms.

You text me that you
had a dream about her
I was looking for endearments
to use with her
and you felt uncertain
of the ground under our feet
of the space between us
but that when this happens
when the twinge starts
you always come back to desiring
what makes me happiest

I tell you that I desire for you
to meet and, though I do not dare
speak this, to fall in love with,
your handsome Spanish-speaking
accomplished dance lead
and that this brings up in me
the less-than, the feeling
that when you find him, when
you are in his arms, he will be
everything I am and more

You tell me, you can’t imagine
ever deciding that I am not part
of your life, that word ‘ever’
rings in my heart the whole day
and still is, days later;
your affirmation that my place
in your heart is steady, even when
inevitable change comes,
dries out the quicksand
under my feet, that had been
slowly oozing up my ankles

I have this image of your heart
a sphere of gold-blue-violet fire
swirling fiercely but calmly
your brilliant radiance, and within,
your deepest pains hidden away;
I dip my hand in, reaching
toward where your hurts live
gently pulling and coaxing til I
hold them at last in my hands
to weep about, and then to release
into the air, butterflies
ladybugs, painted buntings of remorse
and grief and shattered time
flying away, lightening our hearts
with the beauty of their flight
then, finally, the places where those hurts
had lived, become free, at last
to hold only complete joy.

I tell you in a text
that I am overflowing
from the obvious concern
I saw in you when I was sick
that if I had any doubts at all
about how you feel those are gone.
Your reply is one word, Heart.
Over the past few months
it’s just been single words
that have pushed out
the edges of my heart
Heart, Okay, your sign off xoxo.
My heart has long ago outgrown
my chest, it is a golden sphere
surrounding all of me
and I reach down through it,
the sphere, golden from you
and blue from me, colors swirling
together, I reach down
into the oldest wounds I have
touching their edges through
blue-gold energy, the color
of my toenails this week,
and the edges of the wound
are all i can bear to feel,
and I lie in your bed, sobbing
your arms around me, your voice
whispering in my ears that I am safe.
What is love if not this?
Your willingness to witness me,
holding my reintegration
without judgment, neither of us
knowing who I will be at the end,
trusting the universe to give us
beauty and joy beyond measure,
Joy that, each day already, is
beyond all the beginning decades
I have so far lived.
I sit and write this, the feeling
of being held and loved by you
the feeling of your body against mine
resurfacing, tears running down my face
and it is only a few hours
until I can once again hold you.
Someday, someday my beloved
the tears will be done and possibly,
just possibly, my radiance will match yours.

the back of my hand rests
on the napkin holding tortillas
your fingers curled around mine
each thumb to the other’s little finger
I am focused totally on you
to the best of my capacity
and this is uncomfortable for you
I say, my desire for you
is for you to fully receive
this amount of love
we speak of desire and love
you say, I am afraid
of being submerged, of losing
myself, and I totally understand
I say, my therapist asked me
a decade ago, why I got married
I said, I loved her, and he said,
that is not usually enough,
most people have other reasons
as well, and I admitted
that I had hoped she would help me
be accountable to being the man
I thought I could be but that it didn’t happen
and he said, did she give you any reason.
and I told you, now, in this moment,
that what you had said earlier, in our pleasure,
that you desired that I be more fit,
that you had not said ever to me
for fear I would be hurt, had landed in me
as deep love, as the reason I need
to go beyond my own will to do this
to be fit and healthy for me,
for you, for what is between us,
for the length of our desire
to go on and on into old age together.
later sitting on my back porch
with coffee, your legs resting over
the arms of both our chairs
we talk about our deep desires and fears
about what our future might hold
about what home is and isn’t
and I thought, but still did not have
the courage to say,
my home is where you are