You’d better like it or lie
smile when I
                    take your breath
          make of our kiss something less

                                        predictable than a myth
and survive
                    what this life
          tries to limit us with, gift

                                        after gift impossible
to top what
                    giving one’s
          heart to another does once

                                        it’s been broken, once twice-tried
by fire in
                    a furnace
          pure silver burns its pride in

                                        its warmth returns only then
when again
                    softened, when
          by dripping spoonfuls moonlight

                                        uncovers my wounds and out
flows dormant
                    love finding
          its true way, hot, silent, and

                                        triumphant, its burn of these
honest words
                    teaching us
          both god is just what we call

                                        ourselves when in those moments
we fall on
                    knees and keep
          from nature’s laws our souls’ same

                                        purpose, hubris obscuring
painful truth
                    justice at
          once so poetic and too

                                        universal, knowing now
how we act
                    out our roles
          heroic just because if

                                        we break then it makes of bones
relics worth
                    more than gold
          no greater wealth than ink when

                                        it runs from legend onto
the tongue, from
                    off of page
          into song, singing to one

                                        as I am to you now of
how before
                    their bloom seeds
          have to go down, how from depths

                                        big things we seek somehow pound
through frozen
                    ground, little
          dreams waking to ancient sounds

                                        I know make your pulse pound, too
Orphic hymns
                    mysteries
          rush from, allowing ours room.