Chasing Seagulls

Hesitant from past losses,      
you spread your beauty across our alter bed.        
I feel the glance of a child’s eyes       
as you look deep into my darkened soul.        

In your gaze I see you chasing seagulls with another.        
As you tumble to the sandy beach, he steals your first kiss.        
It was the kiss of warm innocence and curiosity.        

Do your eyes see me on a wooded creek        
as the landowner’s daughter laughs from the shore?        
She was lovely in the afternoon light.        
I taught her to bait her line and        
touched her fingers, soft and tender.        
There was only innocence,        
but her touch shot through me.        

Oh, how we’ve grown!

I now feel in your eyes the eyes of others;        
those you’ve loved and lost.        
Do you sense the eyes of my lover        
silently bearing the cost of tonight’s pleasure?

Tiny white flower petals        
float above your breasts in the waning light.        
I kiss softly and smell honeysuckle        
and warm air before a rain.

A gust of wind blows through our open streamside window.        
The pure power of lust washes over me        
and I commit to the task,        
spreading you like malleable limbs of a cherry tree.

Ah, the beauty!        
I press my face to your trunk so my lips may parse warm fruit      
that past loves have tasted. My head spins dizzily with the knowing…        
knowing I’ll soon enter your simmering darkness as I've entered so many others.

“Have you ever chased seagulls?” I ask louder than intended.        
Your eyes narrow with questions but offer no words.

I kiss you softly and feel the same warm innocence of that day on the beach.

As I press in, I hear in your gasp the startled fluttering of birds’ wings.

Forgive me, but this hardened tool of my animal-self is all I have left to show my love.

Through my blurred vision, I see your tears and feel the weight of our costs. Our eyes are somber in our joining but sparkle with the gathering light and the momentary joy of chasing seagulls.