Our lips need not be involved,
touching, sharing in our words,
making of our phrases
sentences of cinnamon and chocolate;
our mixed breath taking me surely
to the exhalations at the mouth
of the mountain spring.
Our hands need not be baskets
woven of fingers and thumbs,
sensitive to the angle of forearm
or the shin,
nor alive as a water snake
wound around the / warm circular arroyo
formed where the forefinger
and thumb / come together
when gesturing perfect.
Our fingertips like otter kits
need not slide down
cool smooth doeskin slopes
or explore lowland hollows.
All that is no longer necessary.
We can feed this understood thing
sitting apart in a wide room.
I see your broad sunhat afloat
above the garden fence
like a raft of ducklings
on the valleys and hills
of the big green river.
And when I think of our secret
you look up and toward the house,
toward the window of my study;
and, although materially impossible,
our eyes lock long enough
for us to step through
into that little cottage we share
in a little forest of very old trees
where the warm, cooling rain
comes gently down
like an endless assurance
of mornings in early May.

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