in the room
the lovers fold into one another
disappear and reappear from
under the worn white sheets
of the bed over there
across from where i sit
in the corner of the room
on a simple wooden chair
and i watch blankly
feeling slightly bemused
and somewhat out of place
not quite the poet laureate of love
more an embarrassed observer
with pen and paper
here to chronicle
the events of the evening
for you
they bend under the weight of sex
flexing taut muscles that fire
and then relax
and i jot down the cadence
of every whisper and groan
in the rise and fall
of this symphony of desire
carefully noting how
her hair flies in a perfect arc
over her softly lit shoulder
just before her lips pout and part
to caress and encircle his eagerness
and when his kiss
finds the heave of her hesitant hips
i grasp for the perfect mixture of words
feel it form and rush along the fingertips of thought
before it collapses completely
and is gone
i have known these lovers
for time passing over time
their elongated and supple bodies
so easily dancing and writhing here in the shadows
have turned into one another
since the days of the Roman gods
theirs is an enduring ritual
that races down a familiar path
from gentle caress
to the rehearsed chaos
that measures the crushing blows
of flesh and bone
in the murderous longing for ecstasy
until at last she is lost in him
and he is lost in her
and both cross the sacred divide
each helplessly obliterated
for the sweep of mere seconds
in the fusion that other poets
far better than me
have described as
the motive for metaphor
