"God."
A bottle with curves
and pink labels that stretch
just enough to be hard
against knuckles and then,
light on skin, on gold curves
and my fingers touch,
slip and caress

I can see only blonde, only young,
only eyes cut from song
polished facets of melody sung
in the sun, filtered sea water silver-
edged prisms and legs
that stretch all the way, nearly
sever the sweetness of silence
the velvet-lined syrupy center
--cleft like a thick viscous bassline,
like jazz in a club, like a drum
beating soft, beating smooth, beating slow
like the hips of a girl
who can sing me to slick
sweaty softness, to sleep
in her eyes, in her arms, in her thighs--

stretching up, stretching white, stretching wine

like the rhyme of a lie, like the thrum of the sun
like a gun-
shot of grape-
tasting sparkle.
Communion

was never so nice, nor such sacrament
save when its shared
in a glass, in a bed, in a kiss
like the edge or the rim
of a half-empty glass
licked with lip-
stick in curves
like pink labels.
"Yes."

written September 14, 2001, after too much NPR and someone else's box of wine