Jack
Caron Andregg
I.
I see you always from the lips down
As if from under a veil,
Or from some hidden spring
The full flood of your beauty poured
In one long, lean, fluid, stream
From heaven to the ground.
Your eyes remain obscured by clouds
Or by some distant thought
Which bars the way between us
Like a squall. My weather-eye
Insists I should retreat
Yet I would break myself
Upon the wheel of my own wanting
To possess against all sense
That unpossessable beauty which
Like a captive butterfly
Beats off its iridescent sheen
Against the hands that touch
Against the bottle’s glass
Against the very suffocating air
That loveliness which so defies confinement
It sooner would evaporate to dust.
Perhaps it’s just a trick of our geometry
Perhaps my eyes can only reach so high
That I can flex my back
Until my neck would break
And still not see you all
To be left at last to wonder
How a collection of such delicate, fine bones
Can go to make a man so tall.
II.
We circle each other like wrestlers
Too wary to close,
Yet too committed to pull away.
While we learn anew the steps
Of that intricate dance
The graceful give and take
Which marks negotiations
Between those who are not free
But still believe in intimate truths
Which supersede our ordinary lives.
You are torn between
A pulse which says, “Go on”
And a faith which says, “Go back.”
Torn between doing what you should
And what you would if you
Could only pull it off. This time,
You are determined to be good.
But while you are determined,
I am persistent, and as negotiations go,
I hold the position of ultimate strength.
I have nothing to lose and an infinite
Amount of time to lose it in.
And I have a powerful ally
In your own hot blood.
In the end I know the strength
Of my convictions will prove through
To know the curve of your lip,
The swell of your cheek,
The long, clean line of your thigh
To know the pulse in your throat
And the taste of your skin.
To prove what I believe
To be the truth.
That the difference between
Remembering and just imagining
Is the distance between Heaven and Hell.
III.
You’ve disarmed me while I wait
Like a cat in a kennel
While your own fears
Ride you raw. You’ve left me
With only words for weapons
Hollow as reeds of straw
But words are the world’s
First magic. With words,
I will conjure you. With words,
I will build a bridge across the which
Your fears can never follow
With words I will build a world
And place you at its very heart.
If it turns out as you dread
And your God damns you
For loving me too well,
Don’t be surprised to find me
Safe as a salamander
Standing between you and hell.
No religion with more certainty
Can guarantee your everlasting life.
Through me, you will always be
As you are, not as you would seem
Or as you will become
But in this eternal instant
Where I will always love you
And you will always be beautiful
Through me, you will be immortal
Because I wrote you down.
