I cannot decide what is like you.
I cannot decide if your eyes are black suns
or two dark diamonds.
I cannot make metaphor
on so little sleep.

Bear with me: I am tired this evening!
I might blurt some absurdity.
Your toes are my rosary,
your belly is my Magnificat,
your lips are my chalice of Jesus.

I don't know how to describe
your furious tender heart,
so I pile up the adjectives
and blur the edges
of what should be hard and precise
and certain.

Your heart is the blade
on which I cut myself.
Your heart is the furnace
in which I burn.

I am not Dante, and you are not Beatrice.
I am Thomas, sometimes Dylan, sometimes Pat.
You are the lady whose name
is as secret as the host in the Tabernacle.
You are the lady whose name
I dare not take in vain.
You might produce identification,
but I'm damned if I can read it.

Shall we drink coffee together?
Or quarts of red wine?
Shall we dip cupped hands
into the northern mountain brook
and take the cold water
with sacramental reverence?

Shall I be the sparrow
perched on your striped shoulder,
O tigress, O dangerous beast?

Shall I be a paper boat in a pond
which you strike and set ablaze
with a bolt of your lightning?

I'm sorry. I don't remember you right.
That is, I can see you
but I can't record what I see.

Some poet I am!