Bao Phi

I usually don't like the love poems that I write to a specific person, but this one stands the test of time for me. It has two dates at the bottom because that was the time period I worked on it.

light

At night,
when everything becomes debris
of light
and curving blackness,
slicing swathes into degrees
of darkness,

I understand that your love is my sundial:
the sun has dragged and the moon has draped 7 times
since last you kissed me,
and through those changes of brightness

I've crawled
to seek light in the arcing rims
and alcoves of your ears,
I'm hiding
in the delicious cave at the small of your back
the delight of its curves enough to sustain me.

I see you when the flourescents keep giving out
on the subway car and the blinking blue lights
in the tunnels suddenly become everything,

the chinese man
at the canal street station, so close
to chinatown,
lines in his familiar face
holding more stories than
the hints of brightness
from the reluctant pockets
that feed his violin case.
He looks at me and we both understand
that no matter how many coins bury themselves
into his possession, he can never buy change.

And when I can't stand whispering
how much I love you into the darkness anymore,
I drive towards you, the lights in the eyes of my car
staring at stars,
the minus marks
on the highway subtracting the space between us.
I come to understand that at night
the absence of light
is your distance.
So when I kneel willingly before you
smelling of stardust,
my mouth starved
for your sunlight

I'll beg to feel with my fingers
the brightness caught in the blackness
of your hair

and I'll tell you that I need the light
radiating and rising from the horizon of your skin

and I'll tell you that I need the brightness
billowing from your breath

and I'll tell you that I need the delight
of your unspeakable perfection

and I'll tell you
that I need

I'll whisper this
begging for an ounce of brightness

the unique light
on the tips of your fingers
spirals inside of me

even when I close my eyes
you stain
the back of my eyelids orange

and I come to realize
eyes become light at the end of the tunnel
where I begin,

kisses become sundials,

hands become longitude and latitude
chasing the sun's shadow across time zones,

and fingertips become stars

your love becoming light

8/9/99-9/13/99