The Syntax of Touch

 

You midnight the room
when you enter,
and I become all window—
all reflection, all dark glass,
watching your shadow
velvet itself across the floor.

Your eyes eclipse me.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
They linger where my composure
is thinnest,
and suddenly I am fevering
toward everything I should resist.

You silence me without speaking.
You gravity the distance smaller.
My pulse drums beneath my skin
as though it has chosen you
for its only rhythm,
as though the body can betray
simply by becoming music.

Come nearer
and mouth my name softly—
let each syllable wine
against your tongue.
I want to hear how you darken it,
how you turn something ordinary
into something I almost blush
to recognize as mine.

Your nearness roses me.
Heat unfurls beneath my throat,
climbs slowly into my face;
even the mirror would betray me now,
misting itself
with everything
I refuse to confess.

And still you do not touch me.
You almost me.
You perhaps me.
You make a beautiful cruelty
of the final inch between us
until wanting becomes
its own form of contact.

If your hand found mine,
I would thunder.
If your mouth found mine,
I would forget every careful word
and let you verb me
into some new language—
something breathless,
something without grammar.

So come closer.
Night me.
Fever me.
Eclipse whatever remains
of my good intentions—
and when I finally gravity toward you,
tell me:
which of us was the temptation,
and which of us surrendered first?

Photo credits: Pinterest 

Posted for dVerse Poets Pub - Meeting the Bar by verbing your verse. Thank you for your kind comments and visits.