The Bed Is An Island of Freedom In An Era Of Exploration

for 7 Muses

What,
now and/or then
is the truth of poem extraction,
of the press of bodies, friendly relations
between bodies, the lingual trick and slip,
trip and slick, fleeting warmth
in an otherwise icing night?

On the outside, fish swim in air.

Why the cross-stitched milling
of bees under the rib cage?
What the truth of ticking
and beast sound, hair tingling
the upper back,
the neck, the chance
encounter with the lip-dryad?

On the outside, blue cacti tell secrets.

Time, then?
An extra-spatial thing,
a gradual occluding,
a tropical crucible
for saponification
of the senses
and window throwing…

Outside, tired cars sleep cold.

What comes in?
Who comes in?
Who gathers readiness,
nautical miles from Pangaea?
In the cant of reason,
in red-rimmed momentary
lapse of trees, outside,
where eyes tell storytales,
a dream in the crazy night runs closer,
ever more highly reticulated,
ever ready to follow a candle,
shadow of another energy signature,
into the dark. Who’ll stand
for cinnamon scented
new kisses and not deshacer?

Outside, Christmas lights think new thoughts.

Victorious humans,
in perfect
cracked-apart versions
of their body-shells,
find magnetic ease
in a hundred glances,
a hundred beginendings.

Outside, houseplants huddle closer.

In this rarified air,
in this stricken era,
the bed is an island
of freedom
in a time
of exploration.
It has its own atmosphere.