As/Is







4.09.2006


That Black Dress

That black dress
made your breasts
penitent magnolias

(mouths praying)

and your hips curved
wide, the sea where
dolphins are born,

the zipper against
your back- an ingress
to secret roads

(few men have known)

the waist, tight as
throat when the eye
sees far-too fragile things

(imagine a hand cupped
around a small bird)

the skirt, the sky
within which lies
burning clouds at sunset

(God's fiery face)

when you take it off-
moon's gold flesh against
the dark cloth of night.