Shaking Ink
for T.P.

want to eat you still until I’m full

hungry for you for too long

how surprisingly sweet
my penis, while I’m peeing, smells

no one near to share it with
you’d have known what to do with it

artist, connoisseur

we had a long talk of lovemaking once
all that’s intricate/secret we spoke of

and not just above a whisper
nor did we pause or lower our voices
when the waitress came near

what an evening that was
it was intercourse just short of the act

though it was just talk
it was much much more

conversation as daring or more daring
than any I’ve ever had

as good as those Peggy and I shared
in Shoney’s, in Memphis
where we were university students

another Platonic relationship
which was magic, edifying, transforming

intimacy comes in various sizes, packages
unpackage it to make use of it
to clothe yourself in it

naked woman on my wall
woman naked on my wall
and in my pen I shake you from
and shake ink from

shaking in you, you shaking too
until you and I shudder

where/when upon the spinning earth
unless time turned back for us two

like something it forgot/it dropped
and returned to pick up

regret the ride in you I never took
like the road never taken, Frost wrote of

I could have made your woods
fill up with snow
with miles to go


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2008
5:40 a.m. 30.11.08