A Marriage Book. James P. Lenfestey
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Swimming in the Sea of Time
13 The Poet Visits His Son, a Concert Promoter, and Attends a Michael Franti Concert
16 Before the Grandchildren Arrive
20 Here Is My Promise to You, or Marco Polo Leaves the Kitchen for the Provinces
Wedding Poem
In the final analysis, poets and novelists will have more to say about love than psychologists, for they express the inexpressible, and describe individual persons and their love problems, with their individual solutions and failures, and this is true to life and to eros.
John Sanford, The Invisible Partners
PROLOGUE
WHO WOULD BELIEVE
Even a good poet must be wary as a spider
offering a book of love poems
to the woman he married fifty years ago.
If he exaggerates his love, she’ll know.
If he denies it, she’ll devour him
while remembering her old dead lovers.
If he sands off the edge of his desire,
what’s the point?
And if his desire for her is undiminished,
who would believe?
PART ONE
Lie Love Easy
LIE LOVE EASY
pores, pouring, pouring over
lying under, lying, lie
stroke soft furry truths
in the lap
pet soft purring truths
in the lap
take a long time
jiggle hills easy
love time
gentle hills roll
lick your fur
lick your fur, cat
make a breeze
in the forest tangle
kiss the slick
leaves
one and one
become easy
ease away
the forest anger
lie love
please, no dread
please, no leaving
lie love easy
AERIE AND HIGH
I call to her from across
the room,
she hears hawks
high over rolling hills
we arc up, roll and join
and roll away,
high eyes glistening down
I brush her once here,
graze her once there,
she feels wings
I give her my licks of wing,
sharp flicks of talon,
my rough, cruel voice,
my down
we fall
we fall
we fall
toward that river
that soil
that call
Aerie and high
aerie and deep
we nest there
we nest there
and sleep.
SHARED HEAT
There is a certain hairy roughness
to overcome, I understand,
for me it is all easy,
like biting into warm
sour cream.
To touch, then
near sleep,
to fold together
like egg whites, like gears,
then sleep without touching,
sharing heat.
Shared heat.
Is this not the peace and comfort
of the species?
Why we gather under heavy
robes in winter?
Why we sew together
such huge quilts?
Roll apart, not touching
in the night sleep.
But never far,
never too far,
from the heat.
WOODSMOKE AND PERFUME
As a boy, there were