A Love Supreme (2)

Breathless in the backwoods

backlit by what joy could hold you

I see you, naked as stripped wire

all coiled against the quarry man’s

hands. You dance the polecat dance

I lay by the tires, unseen. I crawled

here, sniffing the ground for clues,

bloodhound, girl child rooting you out.

Get gone, you’d say. No way ma mere.

I love you like Elvis loved pistols,

stroking you in the television light

the possibility of that finite music

better than all the stages in the world.

Girl, you keep rocking just like so

I’ll go down river and catch you a fish

with my dirty hands, no man

can contain the love I have for you

nor the rapt attention. Take my hand,

take my whole life too. I’ve slicked

my hair back, I’ve made myself

a boy for you.

“A Love Supreme” first appeared in Gulf Coast, Fall 2006.