Darker Knight

Darker Knight

Swords dulled themselves in masculine sheaths
In the night of love.

At the end of my Crusade
The castle stood
Bombarded yet
Still unsure
Of the hero intent
In benediction
To conquer.

I spoke my prayers to God
The Moor uttered his to Allah.

I was his daylight
He was my Darker Knight.

We knelt to share
And intertwine our daily offices
The hard and marble darkness of his smooth skin
Lent comparison to my white and Western
Body of pale English hide and hair.

Upon my chest
He played the harp
Of seven thousand strings
And in ebony
I played the taut and resounding
Drums of his massive chest.

The music of men
The melody of manly
Ministrations.

We had found our bed the month before
Me falling into it
And him in hot pursuit.
My rearguard of forces fell to this man
With tender pikes and sweeter arrows
Our war and battles had begun.

The fortress of my soul
Fell to him the day after we met
He laid siege with solitary canon
And battered my one wall down.

In joy I laid with him
I had a secret place
To let him in
He filled my days and nights
With darkening passion.

It was for us
To share the rawness of life
The day was mine
The night was his to give me.

How can I tell you
How can I make a note of it
As my pen dips into the ink
And tries to tell my story out
I only know that his love is
Only truly
And fully written
Upon my heart.

His larger pen
Dipped in nothing but me
Records upon my enfleshed
Parchment
The recording of our deeds
In the nights of love spilled out.

In this past month of time
He has written volumes
And spoken less in words
I read upon my skin each day
The utterances of his heart.

We share the Song of Solomon
The pages dog eared and worn
From many days of riding
Many seasoned marches.
It is from The Book
I brought from England
When I left home so long ago.

I left my heart in Seaton
Thereby the South's closest shore
But I have given my soul to him
And his breakers wash over me
From all sides they assault me
I am his island now.

The sweat has washed the unclaimed boundaries of our bed
Our stains have starched the coverlet
Sounds of making love's fulfillment patch the walls with pleas
No better papered tapestry could have paneled love's alcove.

I have held his hand that wields the sword
And have touched his fingers
And kissed each one.
I held him in a tight embrace
And my lips found kisses to give him.

This past day
I know that love has come
I have not told him
He does not for now know it from me.

What has made this day new
Different from the ones I have counted
I would think the heart has moved
From my chest to his.
He owns it now.
Its migration complete.
Does love swell in dislocation
Is my heart missed by me alone.
Anon.
My French tutors would have taught me better
Nothing is missed
When to its home it is returned.

This vacuum
Fills me now
It seeks replacement
With his bearded smile.
Underneath the desert hair
His mouth and lips
Are like an oasis
Not of water
But of fire
Burning madness
Into my eyes
And scorching my mind
With rapture's intent.

When our bodies fully
Surrender
We vanquish all dismay
We gravitate to some far place
And cease to exist in time
It is only in the moment that I know him
We have no past
The future does not hold us
Only the moment, still.

He speaks so little in my ear
When he says his few words
My heart is quick to listen
But mainly he stays his teeth about my lobes
And nibbles like a mouse among the corn.

His tongue darts into my hearing canal
And runs rivers of sounds into it
He is versed in Eastern arts
To drive a man all blank.

It is in the quietude of his moistened tongue
That I understand the Motherhood of language
The translation brings muffled dictionaries
Lexicons from libraries long sand buried.

My Darker Knight
Is a robust warrior from the dried earth
Of a desolate and bleak landscape.

He covers me with sand
And tries to make me forget
The forest colors of home.
I try to share the green
Of Britain but can not get him to see.

The bed calls us daily to its comforts
He is my pillow
My covering sheet at night.
The eclipse is complete when his crescent moon
Covers the sun of me.

He is an artist too.
He has his pen for sure
But his brushes as well
And he has made of me many paintings.
His picture worth a thousand words
He draws on me.

We have blended.
I am not so white anymore
And he is not as black as first.
We trespass the territory of gray.
We have picked up ways from each other.
We are falling into a well of otherness.
And each day we draw a bucket up
And drink until night comes.

We smoke the Turkish root
We swallow the bottles down.
With only a candle to light our way at night
We slip the ship to shore each morning.

It is the night sailings I most enjoy
There is much to be said and had
For morning love
But best the night for me.
I lose his dark body in the night
And he has only the light of me to hold.
The beacon is not a light on shore
But the compass of the soul, enduring.

Sometimes I spill wine
Upon the pages I write
But why does it matter
The original manuscript is me
And only blood will one day smear it out.