Love like a woman

From that day on the  the beach-
seeing you
shy, smiling,
your long, pale body glowing,

I've had no air.

For twenty years
you've been my touchstone
calling me back to you.
Each place,
each city I've lived in-
has held you.
In London we spoke our own language,
danced in each other's arms.
You wept at the sound of your name
in my mouth.

When I was twenty and met you for the first time,
you cut my breath.
Your smooth, oval face
your hands that held
with tender grace
my trust,
mystified me.

Today I'm older but no less wanting-

hearing from you again
has taken my air.

You called me once from Africa,
your voice rich as the burnt sienna
under your feet,
to tell me of seeing a lion up close,
how the muscles rippled in his flanks
how you felt at one with the land-
its sounds
its changing colours
its taste.

I never write of you,
and now I want only
to write of you.

You are the hymn
of the church bells in Athens-
the notes of a Mozart refrain,
the colour of a Marrekesh bazzar
and the taste of pomegranate.
We are the ebb and flow of the tide,
each the ends of a rhythmic pull.
We are the stress and sway of a line,
the sails that break the horizon.
Your voice is the rock I break my memory on.

I know you-
know your every wound and scar-
your every story.
Your touch, your texture
are as familiar to me as my child's.
My hands have not forgotten you.
Our past is the hyphen between us-
apart,
yet forever joined.

We travel our dusty paths,
and it's no matter our companion,
no matter our destination.
No matter the distance between,
we arrive together.

No matter the space or time,
it's you I breathe.

.