I Would Love Like This If
I Were You
If I were a man I
would be dashing
not unlike the silver tip of
sword
and the black cloak of Zorro, I
the mustachioed lip of hero and
swooning love
If I were a man I’d whisper
silvery minnows
that darted like intimate
whispers
into your naked coiled ear of
cupped flesh
silver flashes of true light
I’d waste away in your breath
and sweet feminine sweat
I’d gulp your musk from a greedy
goblet
I would be the suicidal Romeo of
your reverie
If I were a man I would be the
woman you always wanted me to be
the silence that only the trees
can bring
when there is no wind to speak
of
I would cup you like a womb and
be the barefoot male divinity
that of brute arm and dark hair
thick pelvis and broad waist
ripened shoulder and
indestructible Achilles
I would take my cloak and
cover your nakedness
swashbuckle my way
into your memory
I’d be Bogart without the ego
Orson Welles without the
selfishness
I would color your world
with all of the creative
energy I could muster
If I were a man I’d be
debonair and strike your fancy
the Laurence Olivier of
glittering
desert and silk tents
yellow flapping yards of fabric
curling around the breeze
curling around the dry sun
that festoons your desolate sky
I would tiptoe around your
clouds
offer my sinuous desire and
motherly love
I would smooth the wrinkles
from your sad coat
I am no Diego
I would paint no one but you
jealous and guarded of your
russet form
If I were your man
I’d bow my lovely head
like the soft brow of a velvety
doe
I would surrender beneath the
fern
Listen to me coo for you
like a flock of doves
like the spent rain
over summer mountains
I’d rent a thousand knives
of poetry into your quintessence
sweep over the Mojave as rain
does
I would sprout for you,
the unexpected green life
from the parched cracked lip of
dirt
If I were a man
I would clasp you to me
save myself in a silver locket
that breathes against your
clavicle
and lay like soft metal against
the skin over your lungs
the copper taste of kisses
beneath the tongue
I’d be your burnt penny
I will be your Lorca
I would be the heart and safe
sword
that held you like I would want
to hold myself
If I were a man I would be
dashing
The Don Quixote
of your afternoon poem
frail skinny old man with
the heart of a golden lion
I would trip over you like a
windmill
paint you like a Spanish cubist
juxtapose your breasts against
the oil paint of strange angle
the awkward beauty of shape and
sharp lines
drink me like watermelon
ample flesh and emerald rind
the ruby fruit fashioned from
the
lovely garden of the aged
contented wife
Drink me like a garden
I will not elude you
I will toil within you
I will be dashing through and
through
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