Mezzaluna. Michele Leggott

Blue Irises

dia

      I wanted to mouth you all over

      spring clouds spring rain spring

      tenderness of afternoons spent

      blazing trails to this

      place where breath roars through

      the famous architecture of a poet’s ear

      Rose and peony buds and tongue

      ichthyous tumble honey and pearl—

      the runner’s foot has touched and adored

      wistaria sprang after you, figs tipped

      green air astounded by your passage

      to the audient quays of the city

      Now it begins, another voyage after nemesis

      blue-eyed with the distance of it all

       2

      I didn’t know about this passion

      for oh she is also mine

      delirium tympanis from the Portuguese

      wind in her hair alongside us here

      on the deck unhidden she slows your reading down

      Fine ground darkness pours into the vessel

      beans and flowers adorn the fall—

      ichor! ichor! drink to the eyes locked on yours

      the mouth that smiles and will speak for itself

      I have always done the talking and she

      put the words in my mouth saying do melisma

      like sunlight be melisma like no sunlight pressed

      redness before dark print an iris on her

      & do melisma like sunlight astir oh & os etc

       3

      From the corner of this mouth take

      kisses that begin in moonlight

      and pitch slow fire over a history of you

      reeling in the universe Rhapsode

      you and I have some walking to do, some

      stitching together of the story so far, its feat

      of silence, of sleeping lightly and listening

      for the touch that outstrips all sense

      in the hour before dawn Look we have come

      to the walled garden See how the roses burn!

      The lovers in the fountain spoon each other up

      their drenched talk stretches the library resources

      and when pubis and jawbone snick into place

      you face my delight an uncontrollable smile

       4

      Honeyed learning! I traced her once

      to an island in spring, pointilliste mouse-ear

      drifting down the margins Then she was

      phlyctena in the eye of the sea-ear reworking

      a disturbance in my name I found wild choral

      allusions and scents that drew a white bee

      to not-madness in the folds of her blue gown

      This morning the whole world is wet wistaria

      battered gutters running and everything drowning drunk

      extends a big hand for the reprise

      Which comes Up the road on small trees

      is a honey blue inflorescence I can’t name

      When the gardeners say cyanotis trust your ears

      though rain fall into an open mouth

       5

      She made him a porpoise gills a-snort

      because it was so hard to configure that body

      The words weren’t there or they rolled over

      and supplied mermaids and mariners For him

      the language is a woman’s body and she

      will stand out in the rain a hundred years

      running it back at him Hast ’ou seen the rose

      in the steeldust (or swansdown ever?) Have

      you seen a falcon stoop? Hast thou found a nest

      softer than cunnus? Can yee see it brusle

      like a Swan? O so white! O so soft! O so sweet

      is she The sonneteer coughs sneaks

      another look at her dolphin scores out

      the ellipse after his vibrant tail

       6

      within the temple gate and you knew

      she was just delicious cooking up a storm

      like this in the big kitchen of your heart

       The bee in the fox-glove, the mouth on the nipple

      Words! and be forgiven hot kisses translated

      with cool accuracy She ripples past his lilly

      in a Christal to get at a thyme-burning bee

      shut up in a crystalline Perfect footwork

      Bobble down that track loverboy they’re bringing

      out the focaccia bread studded with olives

      and a rough red to match your breathing

      She’s a contrejour effect on the glittering sea

      baby on the breast and a smile that makes your heart stop

      Yes we bear sons They remember milk and honey

       7

      Blue irises after dark

      driving lamplight and Venice-glass

      into a fine distraction : bise in a crystal line

      wanting to know what you know and why

      there’s a smear of milk on my shirt so long

      after weaning these heroes of eros

      I planted incendiary kisses on solemn mouths

      all over the island of matchless greed

      whose