I Want You to Be Part of My Landscape

 

I want you to be part of my landscape;
I want my day to begin at your shoulder,
my noon to be lit by your sun,
and my talk to end with your candor.

I want your cool hands to touch
the responsive ground of my skin
with the scattering lightness of fallen leaves;
I want your desire to be my discipline.

I want the distance of my gaze to lounge
with the magnificence of your reclining posture.
I want to see you in profile and in relief,
and to find you in winter and in summer.

I want my art to reveal our intimacy
and our love to be the dress you wear;
I want to entangle my stars in the beautiful
constellation of your fallen hair.

I want the mist of the city’s heat
to rise up, to mix with your heavy breathing,
and to enclose my neck and face
with the dark cloud cover of evening.

I want my dusk to settle into the ardor
of your receiving, half-closed eyes
and to feel myself rooted
in the earthly curve of your thighs.

I want the dark perfume of your skin
to become my deep, surrounding night.
Oh who could have imagined the shadow
you would add to my unfolding light?

Who could have foreseen that your kisses
would possess the sudden solitude
of distant cawing crows, who could have foretold
that you would become my drawing, my nude?

Who could have foreseen that our embrace
would become the way I measure my wealth,
or that our love would again and again exhaust
an affirmation that would so quickly renew itself?

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