I love ass cheeks, ripe
billowing cheeks, illuminated
by lace and satin.

They rise in the evening.
The lives of the Irish saints
which record tremendous beasts
and the expelling of snakes
refuse them with a shiver.

Shadowed, like the west
an hour after the sun,
a round monastery
housing the only grail
worth pilgrimage.

They swell from their thighs,
canvasses eager for jasmines,
vellum quivering with moans
for the psalms of my oiled fingertips.

They draw forth, near
enough to taste: Bestial
triumphs. In the scriptorium,
ink shudders in the well.

Beneath another moon, the forlorn
pour hot water over used
teabags and heartache stares
at the empty shelves of its pantry.

I like to sidle up to them
from behind, like a pickpocket
pressed in a crowd, fingers
silent in a strangers blue jeans.

Gently, with my tongue,
tease the lace down.
Have them tumble into my hands
like melons released from the earth.

I curse astronomers who fail
to rename constellations after them,
physicists who refuse to include
the gravity of their rotations
in even the most basic formulas.

I insist that a woman stripped
to her panties and looking
remotely over her shoulder
is an invocation of the divine.

The legless soldier in his hospital bed
who peeks up the skirt of his nurse
just one more time before passing
can earn no greater medal.

Look, the moon has pulled the stopper
from its flacon of dreams.

Now, in the hour of tides
and candlelight, I pull your hips
to mine, cheeks spilling
like the reflection of the moon
across wine in the goblets
of my eager hands.

Originally published July 2011