Our Love Angers God

but with you, the way you wail, the way you writhe a Salem’s waltz

on your mother’s couch and in projector rooms of college campuses,

I can hear your heart pulling from your breasts when you breathe

hot into my ears, eyes closed to feel my spirit blend with yours.

You wail those three dangerous words with your sweat on my chin,

my eyes lost in raw and charcoal-colored thighs,

the salt-rose wet, the sweet maple, ginger root, honeysuckle,

the pleasant dull lulling the winced hums of pat and quaff;

calabash and oil palm, the lugged skin-flap soured by moist

but syrup to the tongue;

strawberry seeds on my sweetheart’s other lip,

a couplet of light kisses, a gesture of Come Here’s in the clenched-warmth,

the notion of abundance appraised to holy animation,

the song of her rising and meeting God.

There is power in this.

Not because of my own pleasure, but she looks to be ablaze

in the Holy Ghost and Fire and says

I Love You in every language of the speaking tongues.

Castrate me clean and drown me in this moment if her holy screams

are wrong.

There is no sin in this.