The First Mountain and Me

Your tongue is an amber lake at sunset.

I walk around hearing it’s lapping edge.

You’re the first mountain and me, I am

an arm of fire against the first frost.

If you are the seam in the back of the night

I want to be the zipper attached to the front.

If you became an ocean side opera house

I would be a parrot living in your rafters.  

I know it’s you that touches every orange,

this is why each morning I kiss every juice glass.

Yes, if you were a wooden table I made

I would promise my hand to never shape

another thing as long as it stayed attached to me.

I saw you as an island suffering coastal erosion

and thought, more room for starfish.

It’s true, you’re the salt left by the morning dew

but, I am the fog that enters when you open the door.

You want to be the river returning to its source,

and I want to be the mouth that holds the most music.

You are always ever the careful brushstroke

of an artist who only paints nudes. I am that artist.

If you were the censors hands hovering over

a sacrilegious sentence. Let me be the soap that cleans

off any embarrassment. If you also became a second

yellow mountain. My arms would blaze into two sunrises.

If you were to stand up and leave when I said all this,

I would walk quietly behind like the museum curator

turning off the lights over every great piece of work

then turn back to dutifully lock up the great hall

until someone else was ready to see its worth.