ironing their clothes
 
 

With a hot glide up, then down, his shirts, I ironed out my father's back, cramped and worried with work. I stroked the yoke, and breast pocket, collar and cuffs, until the rumpled heap relaxed into the shape of my father's broad chest, the shoulders shrugged off the world, the collapsed arms spread for a hug. And if there'd been a face above the buttondown neck, I would have pressed the forehead out, I would have made a boy again out of that tired man! If I clung to her skirt as she sorted the wash or put out a line, my mother frowned, a crease down each side of her mouth. This is no time for love! But here I could linger over her wrinkled bedjacket, kiss at the damp puckers of her wrists with the hot tip. Here I caressed complications of darts, scallops, ties, pleats which made her outfits test of the patience of my passion. Here I could lay my dreaming iron on her lap The smell of baked cotton rose from the board and blew with a breeze out the window to a family wardrobe drying on the clothesline, all needing a touch of my iron. Here I could tickle the underarms of my big sister's petticoat or secretly pat the backside of her pyjamas. For she too would have warned me not to muss her fresh blouses, starched jumpers, and smocks, All that my careful hand had ironed out, forced to express my excess love on cloth. Julia Alvarez

and if there'd been a face above the buttondown neck I would have pressed the forehead out I would have made a boy again out of that tired man

  el beso
 
 

Twilight -- and you, Quiet -- the stars; Snare of the shine of your teeth, Your provocative laughter, The gloom of your hair; Lure of you, eye and lip, Yearning, yearning, Languor, surrender;               Your mouth And madness, madness Tremulous, breathless, flaming, The space of a sigh; Then awaking -- remembrance, Pain, regret -- your sobbing; And again quiet -- the stars, Twilight -- and you. Angelina Grimke

I brought my love wrapped in cotton and silks its face and hands washed clean as an innocent. I cupped my hands for love to drink from, filled, filled with the sweet mingling -- Iyamide Hazely

  a light left on
 
 

In the evening we came back Into our yellow room, For a moment taken aback To find the light left on, Falling on silent flowers Table, book, empty chair While we had gone elsewhere, Had been away for hours. When we came home together We found the inside weather. All of our love unended The quiet light demanded, And we gave, in a look At yellow walls and open book. The deepest world we share And do not talk about But have to have, was there, And by that light found out. May Sarton

the world we share was there

  how gentle
 
 

how gentle are we rising easy as eyes in sockets turning intimate the hardness: jaw upon jaw, forehead warm upon forehead kisses quick as breaths, without volition Love: I am luminous careless as love's breathing fluorescent glowing the fine warm veins and bones your weight, the sky lowered suddenly I am loved: a message clanging of a bell in silence you are quickened with surprise our horizons surrender to walls Are we wearing out our skins' defenses? -- turning to silk, texture of flashy airy surfaces scant as breaths? I am loved: the noon slides gently suddenly upon us to wake us Joyce Carol Oates

how gentle are we rising as eyes in sockets turning

  twenty-one love poems II
 
 

I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming. Much earlier, the alarm broke us from each other, you've been at your desk for hours. I know what I dreamed: our friend the poet comes into my room where I've been writing for days, drafts, carbons, poems are scattered everywhere, and I want to show her one poem which is the poem of my life. But I hesitate, and wake. You've kissed my hair to wake me. I dreamed you were a poem, I say, a poem I wanted to show someone . . . and I laugh and fall dreaming again of the desire to show you to everyone I love, to move openly together in the pull of gravity, which is not simple, which carries the feathered grass a long way down the upbreathing air. Adrienne Rich

I dreamed you were a poem

  a lovely song for jackson
 
 

If I were a seaweed at the bottom of the sea, I'd find you, you'd find me. Fishes would see us and shake their heads Approvingly from their submarine beds. Crabs and sea horses would bid us glad cry, And sea anemone smile us by. Sea gulls alone would wing and make moan, Wondering, wondering, where we had gone. If I were an angel and lost in the sun, You would be there, and you would be one. Birds that flew high enough would find us and sing Gladder to find us than for anything, And clouds would be proud of us, light everywhere Would clothe us gold gaily, for dear and for fair. Trees stretching skyward would see us and smile, And all over heaven we'd laugh for a while. Only the fishes would search and make moan, Wondering, wondering, where we had gone. V.R. Lang

I'd find you , you'd find me

  the lover
 
 

My eyes want to kiss your face. I have no power over my eyes. They just want to kiss your face. I flow towards you out of my eyes, a fine heat trembles round your shoulders, it slowly dissolves your contours and I am there with you, your mouth and everywhere around you -- I have no power over my eyes. I sit with my hands in my laps, I shan't touch you and I'll never speak. But my eyes kiss your face, I rise out of myself and no-one can stop me, I flow out and I'm invisible, I cannot stop this unfathomable flowing, this dazzle that knows neither end nor beginning -- but when at last you turn your eyes towards me, your unaware, questioning, stranger's eyes, I sink myself back into my hands and take up my place again under my eyelids. Solveig Von Schoultz

my eyes want to  kisskiss your face

  to one that asked me why I loved J.G.
 
 

Why do I love? go ask the glorious sun Why every day it round the world doth run: Ask Thames and Tiber why they ebb and flow: Ask damask roses why in June they blow: Ask ice and hail the reason why they're cold: Decaying beauties, why they will grow old: They'll tell thee, Fate, that everything doth move, Inforces them to this, and me to love. There is no reason for our love or hate, 'Tis irresistible as Death or Fate; 'Tis not his face; I've sense enough to see, That is not good, though doated on by me: Nor is't his tongue, that has this conquest won, For that at least is equalled by my own: His carriage can to none obliging be, 'Tis rude, affected, full of vanity: Strangely ill natur'd, peevish and unkind, Unconstant, false, to jealousy inclin'd: His temper could not have so great a power, 'Tis mutable, and changes every hour: Those vigorous years that women so adore Are past in him: he's twice my age and more; And yet I love this false, this worthless man, With all the passion that a woman can; Doat on his imperfections, though I spy Nothing to love; I love, and know not why. Since 'tis decreed in the dark book of Fate, That I should love, and he should be ingrate. Ephelia

There is no reason  for our love or hate 'Tis irresistible as Death or Fate

  he is more than a hero
 
 

He is more than a hero He is a god in my eyes -- the man who is allowed to sit beside you -- he who listens intimately to the sweet murmur of your voice, the enticing laughter that makes my own heart beat fast. If I meet you suddenly, I can't speak -- my tongue is broken; a thin flame runs under my skin; seeing nothing, hearing only my own ears drumming, I drip with sweat; trembling shakes my body and I turn paler than dry grass. At such times death isn't far from me Sappho

and I turn paler than dry grass

  when I hear your name
 
 

When I hear your name I feel a little robbed of it; it seems unbelievable that half a dozen letters could say so much. My compulsion is to blast down every wall with your name, I'd paint it on all the houses, there wouldn't be a well I hadn't leaned into to shout your name there, nor a stone mountain where I hadn't uttered those six separate letters that are echoed back. My compulsion is to teach the birds to sing it, to teach the fish to drink it, to teach men that there is nothing like the madness of repeating your name. My compulsion is to forgot altogether the other 22 letters, all the numbers, the books I've read, the poems I've written. To say hello with your name. To beg bread with your name. 'She always says the same thing,' they'd say when they saw me, and I'd be so proud, so happy, so self-contained. And I'll go to the other world with your name on my tongue, and all their questions I'll answer with your name -- the judges and saints will understand nothing -- God will sentence me to repeating it endlessly and forever. Gloria Fuertes