Tristesse

I have been in arms before, arms grown
Oaken ‘round my flesh; Neolithic limbs,
swallowing the sweat from my skin,
the dew the body makes for love.

And I have ridden the swelling chest,
o’ergrown with wire black hair, face craned
away, so that even in sleep I may not see
the amnesic flashes of nose, razor cut, tooth.

There is an art to drowning. To be swallowed like
a pill is healthy, some say, to drop into
the gullet, to churn, grow seasick with the motion
of love, of the feeling of love, without ever possessing it.