love’s last press
silly dream …
but it’s mine nonetheless
wait …
wait for it …
I’ll wait for it now and ever
to feel that press
the press of sweet tenderness
that melting mouth that met mine all
those aching moonrises ago
the first - a swollen-full blue of July
so bright it drowned the stars …
a muggy twilight of steamy mist and
cricket song and a hazy
dance of fireflies …
to our waists in the pool
my hands on you, hungry -
starving for you, warm
the taste of your tongue like marzipan
speaking sexy wants into me -
mumbled as moans that
spun my mind like maelstroms into
thoughts of pleasuring you
only that …
only you …
only touch and taste and tangled flesh and the
trepidation of perfect passion
I was no more …
for a time unmeasured and wild
I was devoured by the compulsion to
make you want me -
to fill your mind and body with
a need for only my giving
a need so strong that you would
thereafter ne’er think of another heart or
mind or body but mine …
a desire to replace all other desires -
that was my quest
and each moment we were together
from then on it remained …
days, weeks, months -
we whirled like twin twisters
crazy callow cyclones
leaving worried wonder in our wake
years we spent in a
turbid tango of lovemaking and ado
every possible moment was us
and every possible us was dalliance, divine
years of intense intimacy
where each moment apart was
consumed by thoughts of
our next opportunity …
and we took no prisoners - gave no quarter
every other action was only the
connective tissue -
tying us to our carnal cares …
but … sad is time
and oh, the courses of life can be cruel
for our compasses changed so
slowly that we didn’t give them fair notice -
by the time our altered paths had
become clear, it was too late
duty, fate and hope had
found us inexorably bound for
different worlds …
and now …
we are strangers -
the soul I was closer to than any other in
this life is now … apart
not even an acquaintance …
and that whisper -
that hush that flamed my blood with
but a word is
gone from recollection …
the taste of your lips and body that so
often lingered on my tongue
I have lost to time’s ilk …
the fragrance of your flaxen tresses that
swam my head like narcotic
has left the mem’ry of my better senses,
and the dark burnish of your
gaze that reflected the moon off the
water all those ages gone
has drifted far beyond my sight
and gone dim …
but …
I have the silly dream … still
and I tend it like gold
that somehow -
oh, I know not the machinations
but somehow, someday
when I lay upon that shadowy doorstep
when I recline in deference to
the Boatman of Zion
when my bones ache with age
and my marrow grows chill
when thought becomes simple and sore -
somehow, some way, you’ll be there
you will have remembered how dear and how precious our time together was,
how incredibly rare the passion and joinings,
how sacred the countless times we
swam up each others’ rivers to that place,
ever unnamed where we
became singularity,
and how extraordinarily priceless was our love …
you will have recalled that incredible
gift we once shared,
and you will, without word or gesture,
come quietly to my side,
peer lovingly into my eyes with that
shine of July’s sultry moon,
and press my last breath with a
long, deep, passionate
other-worldly warm
sugary-slow
and so sadly sweet …
kiss.
Copyright © 2025 Gregory Richard Barden
( photographic art created copyright-free by the author with GALA AI software )
Copyright ©
Gregory Richard Barden
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