by James Tipton
(08/20/08)

I was born with my mouth open...
entering this juicy world
of peaches and lemons and ripe sun
and the pink and secret flesh of women,
this world where dinner is in the breath
of the subtle desert,
in the spices of the distant sea
which late at night drift over sleep.

I was born somewhere between
the brain and the pomegranate,
with a tongue tasting the delicious textures
of hair and hands and eyes;
I was born out of the heart stew,
out of the infinite bed, to walk upon
this infinite earth.

I want to feed you the flowers of ice
on this winter window,
the aromas of many soups,
the scent of sacred candles
that follows me around this cedar house,
I want to feed you the lavender
that lifts up out of certain poems,
and the cinnamon of apples baking,
and the simple joy we see
in the sky when we fall in love.

I want to feed you the pungent soil
where I harvested garlic,
I want to feed you the memories
rising out of the aspen logs
when I split them, and the pinyon smoke
that gathers around the house on a still night,
and the mums left by the kitchen door.

I want to feed you the colors of rain
on deserted parking lots,
and the folds of delirious patchouli
in the Indian skirt of the woman
on Market Street in San Francisco,
and the human incense of so much devotion
in tiny villages in Colorado and Peru.

I want to serve you breakfast at dawn,
I want to serve you the bread
that rises in the desert dust, serve you
the wind that wanders through the canyons,
serve you the stars that fall over the bed,
serve you the Hopi corn one thousand years old,
serve you the saffron in the western sunset,
serve you the delicate pollen that blows its lullaby
through each lonely wing of flesh;
I want to serve you the low hum of bees
clustered together all winter
eating their honey.

A Silk of Navaho Red

She wrapped a silk, of Navaho red,
around her brown body,
sheer, like sunset spreading
over the ocean, just before dusk.

She was, of course, herself
a spell cast over this tiny room,
something more than woman
moving toward my ordinary bed.

Lowering herself above me,
long dark hair hiding her face,
only her lean legs,
like rich brown light, were visible.

Then, suddenly, like silk herself,
she slid on to me, poised there,
moist and motionless--
this moment for me alone.

In that state suspended
there was no time, no space,
only the sea inside her falling
and rising around me.

A strange rhythm,
her body still, but still
her very center
around me moving.

At last there was no body
that was me at all,
the body I had had
now totally inside her.

Our permanent collection of erotic poetry