unfinished revision to a previous piece:
Someone once told me the greatest promise a man can make is to not make promises at all
And you’ve kept your word like a locket
Folded beneath your tongue
That dances security through me while we make love
I never knew your touch would be so tight all the time
When we go to our favorite nook of the world
I will make my heartbeat pound in my hair
So you can hear it as I brush against you
I will make my voice a partner
For the dancing smoke that unfurls from your lips
I will breathe the moment in
Slowly so my taste buds can shower in it
So my throat can learn what it is to be coated in something sweeter than honeysuckles
Like you sucking the grapes off the vines of my spine
Like you playing the piano on my kneecap
In an orchestra with the wind and the distant traffic we left behind
My name has never sounded more like my definition than now
As you speak it like a new tongue
And kiss it into the nape of my neck so my curls can blow it into your face
This place is ours now
The paper-thin leaves above us are like eyelashes against the sun
I never saw the mahogany red in your brown before
You are blended into the scenery
A tree cracked but oozing syrupy stronger against my bark
I’ll chip seeds into your soil
We are both children of the Middle Passage
Our blood turns into salt water tears we foam out of our lips
And we kiss to feed rivers into this ocean
To shift plates till our lands are touching
Fitting like jigsaw pieces along their coasts embracing
Like we could never let go
We are running while sitting
This rock beneath my hips
Your calf beneath my thigh are all floating air
