Autumnal

 

            Autumnal

 

“No Spring, nor Summer Beauty hath such grace

As I have seen in one Autumnall face”  –John Donne

 

You accuse me when I say I wish

I had known you then, when you were young,

and I admit it, yes, and I think it

more often than I say it, but never add,

slim and beautiful, as you accuse,

nor think your autumn any less than spring:

 

Your beauty grows: When I study those

old photographs that make you young again

your wedding, with your kids, your modeling pose,

when you tell stories of your hippie days,

wild and shy with other men, those Kims

only layer and deepen whom I love:

 

the Kim I touch with an eye caress

across the table, the Kim my brain and blood

explore when I pause and stare at nothing

in my office, the Kim whose skin and voice

I consume in the dark, back to back,

the soul of your foot on mine, soul mate:

 

just as in passion I long to hold you

entirely in my arms and search with nose,

tongue and kisses every inch of you,

to know as much of you as sense can know,

to inhale, devour the every Kim of you,

so do I love the every when

 

of you alive in your electricity:

When I enter you I enter all the pages

of your scrapbook, enter all your lives,

and I become your lovers—cowboy,

matador, some Hollywood types,

pilot, teenager learning how.

 

Can’t you see? Fall has always been

my favorite. Leaves golden on the trees,

the structure of trunks and branches

emerge in their strength, and textures

growing on the ground celebrate

temporary blooms of summer, now.