It is the season of meat.
Your dropped eyes would dissuade the passion
if they could. I lean in to inhale each breath
you make. You sense dark squirrels in my blood
and don’t want me detecting any interest
from the banter and shifting soil
of our friendship: a flower afraid of soil;
a cage of ribs, suspicious itself of meat.
My press is driven less by fever than interest.
You try to counter what you perceive as passion,
try to forgive the garishness of my blood.
I’m not holding my breath.
Heading into my next breath,
I haven’t a clue how soil
first rose up into tributaries of blood
to fill a tongue, setting in motion a dialog between meat
and a hank of cloud. I’m not sure passion
is the residue of an excited star. That would probably interest
you. Harmonics and game strategies interest
you. You appreciate the spells a slight breath
can cast. For now, you channel your passion
the way a good farmer mounds soil
along a rivulet of water; no meat
floats red, raw, and sun-washed through the blood
of your narrow slough. Perhaps its danger in the blood
that I revere. You veer through subjects of interest,
though none takes. I smile a nail-pinning-meat
smile. You sigh, frown, and catch your breath.
I am a persistent rivulet that breaks the soil
you’ve just put in place. How aggravating passion
can be when it’s not your mill churning the passion.
Loosen up. I’m only indirectly out for your blood.
Actually, I’m after something else. I’m coursing the soil
of another river moving carefully with interest
along a breeze of crises. My turn for a breath.
I’m already an ear up against a door of meat.
More than passion, my circles are those of interest.
Between us, bait is not blood; though breath
too can easily soil. I’m drawn to you as river, not meat.