Alba: Desire

Alba: Desire

I love you, have loved you, the way a horse
loves, all this time. Remember the lake

and the lovers who crossed it with a small boat
and two oars, though the water churned like big biceps?

They should have 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 buffed to a sheen
by each other's touches: Do you feel that rinsing

of flesh? Like apes we clean each other
with our hands. Your hands enter and clean me,

not like the bees that enter the honeycomb,
but like the horse that enters the sea.

You will be missed.