Shifter under moons, how came you
to a blush, as I reached up and held your chin like a smartphone one Sunday,
pressed my thumb upon your cleft and
I heard whistles, of trains and birds and vagabonds
who tipped their hats at us, acknowledging
echoes of loves they had, but passed on, wedded to sunsets and roads
they have accepted.

I’ve accepted nothing; not yet.
Repeatedly, I try to net visions and dreams curling heavenward from your hair.
It is an acorn brown, but you dye it blonde,
you live by a trial-and-error of identity seeking, swapping fashions
and loading your arms with ink – heavy pretender, you fake gracefully – totem idolizer
to the core you’ve lined your mantle with beliefs,
pry the poems from the winds and lace them around your ankles
like leather sandals; you call your feet
Jesus feet.

I don’t know God, but I meet with spirits daily.
Rollicking and rumpus ceremonies take place in my kitchen. You often
drag me from my study, wheeling me from the room, my sweaty back
stuck to the chair.

You say I can be belittling and condescending.
I am sorry.
Your legs are thin as a mare’s, knobbed just as much, and I feel
those strikes as you lay over me, crawling
as a cat to my face, some new piercing glinting like a star
– you growl as you kiss me.

What could I ever do that could live up to your mere existing?
I’ve never known someone who was so happy
to run up stairwells, leaning over the railing, with church bells
singing through the walls you tell me
Mary was certainly no virgin, that the prophets and apostles and priests
have surely lied, that her and Joseph
definitely got it on,

and looking up at you I laugh. We smile for each other, and then
you push through the exit door.

Just like that, the world is pure and white again, devoid
and empty of your colors. I suddenly realize
you skipped Holy Communion, so to say goodbye to me in your cryptic way.