Tor Strand

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Like Love

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A cold splash on the night lights 

of the neck resumes the body;

but the shadow’s expanse has frozen

green in the wild roses, the clay veins 

in the pacific iris remain wrapped with winter.

How then might one inertia stir another—?

The lip can be bitten rum dark,

though immediacy is the least of

light’s gifts. Saw-whet owls

dream a deeper dream where the sky 

has space for form. On the dark ground, 

the thousand legs of an S shaped life

keep thousanding—

& with one touch, diffuse as char,

flash black as the tails of phoebes, 

yet as whole as water come deep from within the springhouse—

the hollow charms of small birds 

sing sink white up my nightshirt

& higher still into the dark fountains 

of motion, flowing flower after black 

flower into the wet of your thighs—.

While just past & through us

the dead play their silent horns, embracing 

this blue-young light with pursed lips—

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