Metallic sweat
pressed your body and
personified the heat,
giving it
the character of desire.

Pluck
a vein, an artery,
one of the nerves
that runs from deep inside
my neck
and down my leg
and ricochet
like a tuning fork on a steel beam.

We’re marked with the pumping
blood.
My veins
let me know
that Descartes
had it all wrong.

I am all for any
pulsing arrangement
of wood and wire
that can cause
the sure thing.

Your music ripens the cells
and
your voice is so close to
the end of time, that
any body
caught in your tremulous awakening
is bruised with love.