For when you get there

At the edge of a foreign dune,

I see you in love

With your hands and feet,

Between the ground where you

And God meet.

Love encircles itself and

Becomes a sandstorm that you

Stand at the heart of.

You are praying,

Laying your legs over desert sand,

Allowing yourself

To sit still

Until Joshua trees bend

Over dry hills.

Like skin touching water

And wind lovingly wiping

The sweat from your brow-

I love you just like that.

Just to hear him call me in,

I’d run through Lowcountry rain

and watch clothes stick to skin.

I wish you knew me then,

When love sounded like

A voice calling me back in.

One hour before nightfall,

My breath travels down

The stretch of a breathing hall.

Tonight, I share my bed

With a dying King.

King David calls me young

Before day lays light on bedsheets.

He reaches for the warmth

Of flesh, saying

“Abishag,

You are the virgin I liked best.”

Eyes closed and hair tucked

Behind his ears,

He listens to

The uncracking of walls.

The sound of my breath

Rings around the room,

Like children playing barefoot

In desert sand.

I close my eyes and dream.

I see lovers

Under my mother’s willow tree

In Shunem of Galilee.

Kind David speaks to me,

“Tonight, my dear, I’m only 23.

Come closer and warm this space

Next to me.”

30 years go,

before her ankles swelled over

brass coffee tables

and couch cushions,

my mother lived down

this street.

In June of 1991,

she sat by open

restaurant windows

and allowed her legs

to lean her whole body

back in already

leaning chairs.

For a month, her lips covered the

rims of half-dry coffee cups.

when she paid her check,

she let

passersby’s watch how

her coffee-stained

lipstick always managed

to leave its

mark.