Sometimes When She Reaches for Me, I Can Only Think About Birth and Blood

What is the moon like tonight? Bloodhounds
tracking a near-miss stag through river silt.
That gunpowder air. Rabbit-shadow up there
like god, made by impact. Sometimes, I am only
my bloodstream, a pulsing, flooded atmosphere.
Once, hovering over me, she was backlit by a blood
moon. No, I said when she asked if she should
stop. What was I like then? Mineral, salt,
wet rust, copper, oxblood iron, ash. Do you ever
feel unearthed? I could talk all night like this,
just outside the curve of my own desire,
but really, I’m trying to explain how she kept me,
kept me there, how she brought her fingers
to my mouth. Ask me. I’ll say blood.

Hunger

As a kid I once watched a pair of women as they moved through my suburban mall: JC
Pennies, Best Buy, Auntie Anne’s for a shared butter pretzel. One of them held out the
braided bread and the other took a bite, briefly closing her eyes at this small pleasure. On
vacation, I linger near the postcards rounder in a convenience store to be between a
frothing, red-faced man and my wife. What are you, he loud whispers, What are you What
are you What are you. In Northern California, we all lounge on the muddy banks of the
Russian River explaining nothing to each other. Everywhere sundresses and unicorn
floaties: we are blissful parodies of ourselves. I skim my toes on the smooth riverbed. I pin
lupine to my wide-brimmed hat. My wife naps on a beach towel under a leggy tree and I am
not scared. I am a threshold/she is foot-fall/I am a slate shard/she is an open palm/I am a
sheathed wrist/she is a talon. Later, I will watch her watch me. I will press my hand to her
breastbone to steady myself above her as she braids together pleasure, places it in my open
mouth.