A Second Reel
There will be moments:
late light slanting through wooden blinds
making our naked bodies golden again,
exhausted on a rumpled bed.
In the click of memory’s shutter
the moon rises like a scythe,
a sliver of orange in late October,
as if, optimistic as new love,
it could harvest the gathering thunderclouds.
There is no white picket fence in our future.
In that direction, we agreed, lies danger:
the loss of the crease between friendship and lust,
the fold between abandon and intimacy,
that uncertain seam that surely must be love.
But in some vessel or artery you pump away,
a lunatic lover seeking
either access or escape in my blood,
depending on the whim of the heart.
I will be in your celluloid memory
(edited to your latest fantasy),
if you will be a character in my novel,
promising to wear your black vest
and faded jeans,
your breath stained with cheap burgundy,
willing to take on another life between
the pages of a secret manuscript,
indelible this time.