Someone Else's Wife

There is much to be said
about the taste
of someone else's wife.

I worship her,
paint curves with church wine,
lay communion wafers
on the rise and fall of a breastbone.

Wafers like lily pads on a pond,
A path for the enchanted
leading ….

Her heat melts under my skin.
I can feel charges unannounced,
receptors blooming open and ready,
trembling like a tulip.

My aging (catholic schoolgirl) knees tremble.

We make the sign of the cross.
Fingers kiss my forehead,
the hollow of my chest,
the boney knobs of my shoulders.

I breathe in the neighborhood,
where it clings to neck hollows.

The scent, a rush of sugar cookies,
fresh hung laundry,
and newspaper.

The rise and fall of her breath
is a hymn.

How can they tell me
this is not what sacred is.


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