From the intimate grotto of your ear
to the broad sweep of buttock is a finger walk
down the spine ridge to where
the tops are windswept but the clefts are bushy.
This archaeology’s best practiced
between experienced lovers. Your hipbone
is a gondola rowlock three quarters buried;
the body of the boat’s here too, its ribs
just below the surface. The sea once worked here,
but our dogfish days were done
with that first recapitulation,
the embryo’s uterine refrain.
I won’t dismember you my love,
so don’t include your innards in my inventory,
though I know your heart hides in there
And other wonders lurk in your cavities.
At every orifice I make my offerings.
The buried boat has sprouted
shining roots that plumb the dark
while the main stem reaches up
and spreads its crown beneath the skull vault.
Even now you’re voyaging
as boat and boatman with a pass of dreams
down to the red floor of being.
This wordplay makes me want to wake you
for a further course of sensual anatomy.
poetryspeaksong 