since you upped and left
everyone has thin dry lips
and little parrot tongues,
little parrot tongues,
fine for eating (seeds and berries)
but poor for that kissing thing.

i’ve been missing that
oral oral sex quality our kisses had
that left our naked repertoire
an afterthought,

and the contagious tingle
that started on your tongue,
inflamed my lips and mouth,
then trickled
down my throat to my stomach,
and from my stomach spread
to all my warm stations.

i should have upped and followed,
good mouths are scarce in town.

i’ve rolled in you like a dog
and i am reluctant to bathe.
soap and water will wash you way,
every last trace of you,
and so will go
that unseen, unheard, unvoiced sensation
that races through me
at the faintest trace scent of you.
gone and impossible to recall.

between you and me there is nothing
but the two thin layers of perspiration
we are slick with this humid evening.

slow and raw and tender
under the rumble of the ceiling fan
memories of the ocean’s moving
draw us back and forth across the bed,
two sea creatures stranded inland.

solace is in our fragile oyster flesh
and our cool salted skins.

how a curtain of condensation
and near dark can make you forget
you’re on the back seat of a car, parked,
waist down naked in the faint milk glow
of pale limbs.

a braille exploration
when still only fingertips
have clearly seen
and the mind’s eye churns
over those touches trying to
make pictures out of textures
and failing throws up slides
out of focus, underlit, out of sequence.
so ignore it, go blind for a time.
feel your way through this world
with your seeing eye hands and
your seeing eye tongues.