Obsession

Part 1

There is a wind that blows through New Mexico.
It smells like prehistoric ice  and
pollen and is so thin and dry
the lakes there are barely rippled.

I have seen mountains there
that flavor me with tears;
the touch of stone againat finger,
against lip and retina
releases memories from bone
and tendon and single cell.

Quartz.
Granite. The pungent scent of moss
wetted by melting snow.
Cactus.
Rabbit droppings dry beside dusk-reddened boulders.

A thin wind.

I was a young man inside all this, shaken.


Part 2


There is a wind that blows through a man.
It smells like the flesh he's loved and
the books he's owned and
is the color his eyes become
in darkened rooms.

There are continents in him
that waver me with fears;
the touch of warm breath against cheek,
against belly and thigh
instills memory into bone and
tendon and every cell.
A  whisper.
A promise.
The hot musk of blue jeans leaving brown skin.
Hot dry hands. His shirt dropping to the floor at sunset
as I watched, waiting, hungry.

I was a young man inside all this, shaken.


Part 3

There is a wind that blows through New Mexico.
It smells like him and me and
mountain ice and draws both sweet and bitter tears
from me,
like pearls from a black velvet pouch.


It is the touch of one finger
to another,
to lips,
to cold mountain stone,

to a man inside all this again, shaken.

September 1984