A little something for my Valentine!

   Old Love

We sit

gelled into our shared history

Your head bent over your paper

My hands tangled in needlework.

But the light falls just so—

It paints your cheek

It glints off the rim of your glasses.

And something like an old song drags me

Goo-footed and glistening

sticky with our ten thousand days—

Drags me up onto that great warm slab of rock

Where we lounged one ancient August afternoon

taut and tan and tightskinned—

Where we dangled our toes 

In the freezing stream

its moiling churn on every side.

And spit the seeds

Of fat, ripe cherries

far out into the wild rush

The purple shadows foaming at our ankles,

The green shadows dappling our thighs.

That great rock in its island of sun,

So clean, so raw

So solid in its wild water—

Is what I feel

When I lay my hand lightly on your arm

And ask if I can bring you something from the kitchen

That great rock is what I feel 

         in the bone inside your skin.