Absent Kisses

The fleshy pink
of your mouth
Heavy with cherry
lingers

You stay without
warning

In this moment
Your head
tilts
lilts
to the left

The squint of
an Eye
an invitation
To bridge the gap

A wisp of breath
a walkway into
You
Devoid of forever
But an instant
Of knowing
Want resides

As we press in prayer
To a god that sleeps
Beneath the shade of
Magnolias overgrown

Wanderlust intrudes
Idle hands begin
to discover hills and valleys
Untouched

The discovery of new worlds
Promises of next time
a lifetime
none of it real
Moments of lost
Visions. You become
the movement
the rhythm
the solace I seek in

absence
Disjointed
arrangements

Falling for a
Hope
that this
movement is
only the beginning
of the end

You remember
to be gentle
Yet
I push you
to an edge
daring you to jump
into the void
of must, of need

Dare we speak?
Wake from
this crimson, this midnight, this loneliness

There is still
A kiss
a reminder that
electricity is in our blood
The tips of our fingers
Shock us to life

The softness of lips
in absent kisses
languid as Sunday afternoons
Sun lazily drifts
through shades drawn
in hopes that this will
never end
that midnight
will stay forever

That we will remain
tangled in this lifetime
Only to find ourselves in
the next

Next time
if there is to be another
we will know

That this isn't the truth
That this isn't our
love to own
to grasp in our hands
so tight that the
that it dies
in the fingers that
once brought us to life