The Laughter Hymn

Your fingers dance
to the cadence of this heart – and tongue,
and sway like windless desert rose
and drown like lovers in our oceans:
oceans we burnt with
crispening leaves
flashfire
and scorching gaze.

We have somewhere to go, my dear,
a place I set for us.
Let’s roll these hips; our age-old dance:
humming-blood;
spinning flame from chaos wheel.

I laugh like heartbeats
(beat, beat, beat).
Sought pleasure-tears then
embraced my well-loved fears then
burnt and skinned our fingerprints
that we may brand our pink-flushed skin
with blackened blood and bedroom hymns.

(Ha-ha-ha; life like muscle-spasms.)
Liquid lightening lights our veins;
puppets dance and screams begin.
(He-he-he; beat, beat, beat; marked as oxygen’s mistress now.)

I ache an unfamiliar sound;
I watch your spirit fade and eyes that dance with fire die.
I cannot cry. I cannot cry.
No, I choke with laughter and shudder with pleasure
and twitch with tears long-traded;
can therefore
shed no more.