I wince in reverence – you first Jovian planet,
some icy, accidental seducer. I am of no value to you –
pretty vapor and dust of the gossamer ring,
an interchangeable divertissement. So cheers
to the octopus of sweet cream and rose light spilling across the late spring terrace.
Yes, I’ll try your drink, lie and say I like it just to taste the grains of turbinado
caramelized by the heat of your mouth.
Call me Juno, take me to Missouri, show me your handwriting.
I am a white dwarf star, among the overachieving six-percent that die
and still sustain life,
radiating in an astral mirage where you blush and falter as I eschew modesty –
knuckles grazing your skin, and pull you off the bar stool’s heavy elemental heart
with my two fingers in the gap between
the speckled pearl buttons of your checked claret cotton shirt.
Do you see the reflection in my glasses – that cipher
of a shorter tooth that only shows when I make you truly laugh?
I turn to confide in the howl of a passing fire truck:
Sweet Christ, let him kiss me goodnight.
I look back, the vein on your wrist throbs – body
unmapped as I pull a down feather from your shoulder. Even in an embrace,
my hands are on nothing but atmosphere, hydrogen and helium. Familiar,
you ask the bartender about his ex in a theatre costume shop.
I swallow lavender potions, try your non-terrestrial lock again,
(no. it is almost always the polite no),
see you swimming in the blue topaz of a Swiss lake – you sea goat.
Now it’s late, but not too late.
Baffle me to bones and then casually walk me to the bus stop.