This is How I Plan for the Future

I watch the sun burn out of the sky,
rays unwinding, falling in angles
against furrowed earth,
and I draw my hand across the horizon, to feel the peaks
of mountains I have never seen,
to bathe in streams of whose currents
I have but vaguely dreamt.

Still

There will be a time for laughter,
A time for smiles and words and dances,
There will be time to quake and burst
Out of our skins with life;
but now,
Do not sway--do not move
Do not stir, or go too far--
Lie still beside me:
My hand in the cup of your hand,
My body in the cup of your body
Together, an ocean of skin, rising with
The steady swell
of breath.

Bordeaux

Ages from now, when this moment is ripe

as clustered fruit on vines and boughs,

I will pour it into memory’s cup,

And drink.

Whether we wither, or go to seed,

Whether picture perfect turns to postcard cliché,

or is preserved in the lingering perfumes of hair and skin;

This moment will go out in barrels, like boats,

or caskets, to sleep, ferment,

To grow sweet, bitter, strong.

Ages from now, when we are ripe,

wrinkled, sour, two old mangoes in the sun,

Growing tired, marking the time in seconds,

And small increments--as very old things do;

When the day grows long and draws into night,

And the last boats come to port—

We will taste, upon our lips, Ourselves, as we were,

A Memory, sacred, sanguine,

Sweet.