BLACK OESTRUS

I could lie against you,
mouth on forehead, limbs woven
into a knot too dense
for yearning, hearing the gossamer flurry
of your breath, the wild nearness
of your heartbeat, and it still won’t be

close enough. 

I could swallow you,
feel the slurry of you
against palate
                       -- and throat, 
ravish you
with the rip, snarl
and grind of canine
and molar, taste the ancestral grape
that mothered you, your purpleness
swirling down my gullet,
and it would be a kind
of knowing,

but you still wouldn’t be
me enough. 

I’m learning, love,
still learning
that there’s more to desire
than this tribal shudder
in the loins.

But I’m not sure
I’m ready
for it yet -

that shock
in your daily kabuki
of shape and event.
 
Not yet.

Not yet
that shock
of vacancy.