After the Last Word
When I set out to write a love poem,
I imagine you as voltage in stillness,
your breath carving caverns in the dark,
each exhale a small earthquake
shifting the furniture of my chest.
You are no angel—
but something sharper, hungrier, real,
your pulse a code I’m still learning
to read in the hush before dawn.
I do not write upon your body—
your body carves new geography,
each scar a border redrawn,
each birthmark is a question
marking what I thought I knew.
Your eyes do not speak—
they are tide pools in the light,
swallowing questions whole
before they leave my throat.
Your skin is a landscape I travel blind,
my lips memorize each curve of this map,
my mouth tracing blueprints
for houses I will never build,
each kiss a swift erasure
of the world I lived in before.
But when you laugh,
the ceiling surrenders—
shadows reverse, and I understand
why old maps warned their edges held
nothing less than mysteries.
No poem are you—
a match that sets me alight,
the hush that swallows echoes,
the reason I keep writing
with my eyes closed,
until the words ignite.
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