Not a Love Poem

Sometimes I want to write a poem about you -
About being you in all your glorious
Naked self: your skin

By candlelight lit. The typhoon rain
In the cup of your palms on the roof. Long
Hair styled by the strength of the wind. The bare

Back of your neck and the blades
Of your shoulders. The knotty spot to the left
And a little bit higher up. The faces you make,

Your parted lips unmoving in sleep. Angles
Of limbs folded, then unfolding in dream. Ah,
Bless the geometry of this dance in the starlit

Dark. Curtains open to reveal shapes only the absent
Moon remembers. Sometimes I am pleased,
All hot and sweaty from writing this poetry

On your body - about you, forever inspiring my pen
To linger there, while my tongue lingers here.
Sometimes my eyes, then yours, open.

Note to My Selfie Pantoum

For you flatter me in your casual dimension:
In black and white or filtered with color,
Framed for someone. Oh, I forgot to mention,
On social media you make me look duller.

In black and white or filtered in color,
I see you see older me, but I’ve improved
On social media. You make me look duller
With a blurry grin that needs to be removed.

I see you see older me, but I’ve improved
Myself from my toes up to my wiser face
With a blurry grin that needs to be removed
For a cold and frozen digital embrace.

Myself, from my toes up to my wiser face,
I need no whitening edit. No improvement
For a cold and frozen digital embrace -
I will hold this camera for your amusement.

I need no whitening edit. No improvement.
Framed for someone - oh, I forgot to mention,
I will hold this camera for your amusement -
For you flatter me in your casual dimension.

On Glossolalia

The tongue slides down
to where words
taste different, only to curl
up again when they reach for
the stomach of the brain.