Rapture
I’m trying to teach my throat to sing
The truth of my stomach
I want it to know it is okay to chirp wrongly
The heart chirps wrongly
Really it’s my greatest absurdity
And my most powerful experiment
Much like my words
And my song
Carole noted every one of my discordant sounds
And always said my heart requires too much
By giving too much
I used to be embarrassed
By how painful the loss of love always feels
How disappointment is so like death
The grief equally bodied and brutal
In my body love feels like rage
Beats darkly in feminine fashion
Undulates with maddening lowness
And is impossibly heavy
I have to shriek it out of myself
Like a cat afflicted with spirits
I have to be brave and let it spill
Out over everything in my life
I have to let it heal and destroy
As all the powers of nature do
As the powers of my glorious body
Which burns with unusual heat
Because it knows death is so real
Death steals us at any moment
And the body still dares to love its life
I am spoiled by every sensation which racks my body
The intensity of color and sound
Shape and size
Softness, wetness
Odor and aroma and the deep
Repugnances and raptures
Of all the horrendous and glorious stinks of the earth
The pleasures of water
And I am a fountain
I am a fountain,
I am a fountain!
I renew the pond
I am ravishing
I am full of the power of hysterical enjoyment
I exist in the realm of magic
And my grief is as great as my gratitude
I grieve because I have no claim over anything I love
I sing because I am a fountain of love
So I know what it is to worship water
I know to worship the air because I know
The pleasures of it moving against my body
Wind and feathers love each other
Wind and tunnels love each other
Wind and face and neck
I know to worship the scent of wet soil
Because my worm body has been
Nourished with dead roots and leaves and scat
And as an amphibious imp
I love the slick and musty taste of algae bloom
This body is an ocean of memory
Memory of sensation
The skin knows the blush of the sun
And the ephemeral shape of phosphenes
The skin feels the joys of another body’s closeness
And of other fleshes and furs and textiles
And the joys of vibration and stillness
And the nose!
The mischievous nose
Sniffing out herbs and flowers
Seduced and intrigued by smells of other bodies
Scent is love in the form of curiosity
Music is love in the form of emotion
Skin is adventurous love
Vision is artistic love
Taste is erotic love
Poetry is romantic love
Imagination grows love
Theater is the acceptance that love is absurd
Love is everything and everything is absurd
I am a devoted thespian of love
I accept this grief
I accept this love.
