Seven Love Poems Written for Paul Bachelard

Poem I

Your gaze
the way I am in you
Under the pressure
of your attention.
There is an aging poet
(need I say male)
who won't look at me
since I wrote (and dared read aloud) that story
there is a young actor
(need I say)
who glances sidelong, furtively and often, since I
but you, dare I use the word, forthright?
We talked for six hours
and not for two weeks.
We might as well have fucked.
Like a one night stand,
I can't look.
but
Your gaze.
It weighs.
 

Poem II

I am already so
repulsed
I could easily fall.
Eyes on a carwreck
attention is love.
 
 

Poem III

Anger speeds the heart. Caffeine. Pills
on your sweater. My stomach rolls

Baciami

as blinking fingers line the page. Alert
whorls trace the inked out architecture

Anima Mia

of elbow table fist chin. I
require rulers, tape measures, my

Amore Mio

thumb to complete the cartography
of the masculine country named after

Spogliati

the previous
nation.
 

Poem IV

fear nibbles the
corners of
possible affection
defection to lines
memorized
affects the
other
 

Poem V

I want to be that hand.
Let's swap hands.
When it comes back, it'll
curl around my ear
and whisper about
your temperature
and texture
and gesture.
I'll lick it hoping you did.
Yours came back hot
and flushed. You
can't stop staring at it.

Poem VI

Poem six is not suitable for public consumption and can be seen for private viewing by appointment only

Poem VII

He had one lone pair of eyes
the backup pair he had lost
I've taken to wearing both at the same time
and keeping one pair in my back pocket (left)
and one pair in my coat pocket
and one pair between the pages of the sonnets
which fits rather tidily in my back pocket (right)
with the condoms.
It's an extra
ordinary thing that everywhere I go
I meet my true love.
But he had one lone pair of eyes.