Heather

I lie next to the sea. It is dead still, except for the invisible rippling soundless undulations the water makes as it breathes. There is no moonlight, but it is not pitch dark.

You kiss me everywhere — everywhere, for hours and hours and hours. My lips are dry, my body salt-encrusted. You have eaten every bit of pleasure, yours and mine. I feel parched, dry, in spite of all the plenitude of water and our body-sweat.

The sand too is sweating beneath us. Every grain remembers every wave, every caress, leaving behind just salt, a silver layer of salt as a gift — a talisman of love, of their inconsistent meetings.

I feel parched like the sea-salt gauze. My tongue is parched in spite of your lavender saliva, saliva which changed from that bouquet to the taste of heather, wild weather-ravaged heather.

I look around for light, but I can only see reflection. There is more beauty in second-hand glaze — sky's dark light radiating off your lashes, water's blue light that you hid in your navel, the beach's grainy light that you left unwiped on your nipples, and the light's invisible inner light that you stored in your pupils.

The sea is getting restless. But I am dead still, except for the inaudible swishing that one can hear when you press yourself against my heart.

I need to taste the grainy light that you wrap your skin in, each and every grain that maps the slow deliberate contours of your body.

from Erotext and forthcoming in Blue Nude: New Selected Poems & Translations 1980-2010.