Alchemy

You, he growls
you unbound
unlawful beauty
his eyes rolling with something
that looks like rage but isn't.

He touches me, calls me
rough but loving names: pagan angel,
pillow-biter, naked savage.
He watches me like I am the
only woman he has ever seen.

What is it I find there? in his eyes
he keeps lidded and hid?
You hellbound beast, he says
with hoarse affection
(for he loves me in his way)

but I am too far gone to care where
he thinks I am going, the heights
are already in sight
he will take me there or I
will ride him there myself

pushing the white pony onward
unlawful unbound
wings starting now to spread--
pagan or not, no angel am I
astride him still in leather boots

and nothing else. Now begins the alchemy
of distilling all these things down
to one blinding white flash:
rage need want scent and sound
affection and a warm stranger's hand

and here it is at our fingertips--this brief
creation of one from two; this union
unconsecrated, unrecognized
taming the turmoil for these
fierce moments.

You, he pants
you gorgeous creature
you unrepeatable goddess--and then
we roll together into darkness
no rage, no fear, this animal trust.

And in sleep I am leaving, always leaving
a pagan angel after all
closing for now her far-seeing eyes
wrapped in flightless wings and
waiting on a paling, uncertain dawn.



KB © 3/24/2013