Alba: Two Lovers before Dawn

I love you, have loved you, the way a lark
loves, all this time: not like the folding

of wings but like truth and more truth;
not like dishonesty but like loyalty,

like a gift, open, granted here. Remember the lake I
told of, and the lovers who crossed it with a small boat

and two oars, and the water churning like big
biceps? They would drown, naturally,

but did not: could not, as we cannot:
we will love and meet as if for

the first time each time, each of us like coins
cleaned shiny by each other's touches:

Do you feel that rinsing of flesh? Like cats,
we clean each other. Like apes. Like you, touch me

here and here. Do it again, all over. Enter me: clean
me. As our sex, you will be missed.