Rigorous Magazine | Volume 2, Issue 4

Pi to 44 Places

The suffuse poetry of light folded itself into the room
Graceful as a paper crane.
Amidst the soft geometry of two bodies lay
One percussive beat, resounding in time.
We lay, two complementary chords, overlapping, undulating.
The chime of laugh, emanating and resounding held me in place.
Fingertip to fingertip we existed, looped into one, for two nights.

I understood the tousled hair, curve of loin, gleam of iris.
I longed to know this all by heart.
Pi to forty four places.
Between shallow breath and fiery kiss,
The proscenium arch of his lips seemed to carry the weight of the stars.

I touched them to mine, drawing back to find the luminescence upon my own bowed lips,
His for the taking.

I felt I could summit the nape of his neck to the peak of his jaw
An Everest in its own right.
I lay content, his head anchored on my chest,
And felt an inky miasma of who I once was.
What he saw, I was unsure, I felt remiss in elongated limb, paper crêpe skin, and trembling hand.

Doused in sleep he held me tighter
Hand over fist
Heart over head
I listened for the inevitable discordant thrum of harsh word sent stinging by regret
But found only the silence and whispers of a night
Made replete.

Clean morning light was a blank slate
Splashed with the abstract shape of him
All soft breath and curve of eyelash
Still close and close and closer
He opened his eyes and looked at me for the first time
And memorized the decimals of my affection.

The Oneironaut

When he slept, I slipped away
Though I did not move.
I turned from boy
To moonlight ghost
And left to view us two.

His soft breath warmed my back
Though I’d long gone cold.
His limbs were splayed so statuesque
His form a Grecian mold.

I hovered near his strong frame
To hear his beating heart:
The steady thrum so fiercely beat
It moved through me like a dart.

In this darkened nightly state
He looked so set and ideal
Every part was whole and pure
By contrast, I felt less than real.

I floated down to see his face,
So innocent and fair,
Tight-knit brows and lengthy lash
Enveloped in his thick hair.

With the mask of solitude,
I longed to read his thoughts.
His mind was deep in dreaming
Though mine was still in knotsWhat were the hopes and melodies
That resonated in his mind,
When he pulled me close
And made us intertwined?

Were there fantasies of summer,
And the way we played at sea?
Did he reenact our journies
Or concoct new reveries?

I placed my hands upon his brow
To divine this and more
But no such magic happened thus;
My love emit a snore.

I cozied back into myself
To snuggle up to him tight.
I’d spent the whole night thinking;
The dawn began to emit her light.

All at once he stirred,
rousing from his trance
But he made no motion to arise
And instead clasped my hands.

He held them soft, and both at once,
Laying kisses on my back
I felt a wave of lovingness
That redefined the lack.

I felt the happiest I’d felt
As I began to breathe
Settling into love as it did unto me.

My love was mine forever more,
At last I knew it when
We emerged from our dreams
To love and live again.

Beating Heart

1. The thief purloined the beating heart
   in its consumptive state
   his touch drew blood:
   red shattered glass, to obliterate.

2. By crystal moon love tempered still;
   to slow, to cool; too quick,
   but burning flame of love’s desire
   cannot outlive its wick.

3. The corpse to kiss held no weight
   her grave an echoed lock
   reviled by he, for in its place
   showed time that would not stop.

4. Passing dawn brought peace forlorn
   succulent and fair
   to pry at last from the thief’s hands
   all innocence and care.

5. Destiny unfurlèd at last,
   a rope that reached its end,
   his life complete, he left her once
   on silv’r wing he could ascend.