Saturday, June 18, 2016

Poem Series: IF

~If~
Liz Fink-Davenport



If I'm going to love again, 

I'll love a man with so much ocean in his veins that when his hand strokes the side of my jaw I smell the bite of reef inside his wrist pulse. Sand gritting the hairs of his chest. And I hear the rush of a new wave forming from the inside of his palm like a shell. His hair washed white tipped from the sun, pulling color from him...and to him. If I'm going to love again, he will have the moon's powerful tow, like a rope tied to the edge of the waves. His stars and planets will be my net and I'll rest in it like a woven bed. Eyes that shine out of dark cold places. Explosions of mass. Fireballs thrown across the black. Cosmos walking.

There are things we don't tell anyone. Even our closest that we say we tell all to. No. We keep some secrets deep and dark and salt water heavy. Locked. In the murk. I once loved a man with a fish hook burned on his right eye so that the sea would never forsake him. Right there in the depth of the bluest blue was a white hook to remind me of my heart. Rip tied down. Locked in him. I once loved a man with Orion's Belt freckled on his chest that I could trace it like a connect the dots. I would go up and back down. And never find a universe in the brown dots but just a pattern.

A fish hook and a constellation. The same man. A shell of a palm. Empty. And the briny brush of lips over again. A night sky in his eyes and stars
and promises.
Moons rolling from his laugh. And wave. Upon wave. Crashing.

Secrets. And the roar of tides. That ebb. And flow. Of gravity and the moon and...
your ability to love.
You were never able.

A tidal pool. Versus the ocean.
A candle lit. Versus the sun.
If I'm going to love...I want ocean deep and solar system wide. Because I deserve
all the expanse of the heavens
and the pitched fathoms of the sea. My loves, you do too.
I want it all. All of him.

If I'm going to love again.

Poem Series: LOVE A WOMAN

~Love a Woman
Liz Fink-Davenport


Darling, you want love? To know whom to love? It's a hard lesson learned. You have been so wrong before that your heart is raw. But here is what I know. Love a woman with eyes that burn with intellect and passion. She will hone you like iron on anvil. Someone that reaches for you in the conversations that should divide. She will be the bridge to connect. Love a woman with eyebrowsthat tell you the wrong path is ahead long before you know it. One furrowed brow can save legions from war. Love a woman with lips that purse when you do wrong, and soften when you do right. A woman's lips will tell you much. Love a woman with darkness and hidden truths and catacombs. She is secret treasures and long sunken truths. Dig. Dig deep. Beg to dig more. Then safeguard what you find, it is more valuable than rubies. Love a woman with a swing in her stride and hips that make music. Your life will be lyrical and her rolling jaunt will carry you on days you have no legs. Love a woman who can whistle. There is music there when you can't bring yourself to sing. Love a woman who's deep laugh washes warm over you. And you hear it often. Love a woman with bite and challenge and tenacity. Days get tough, she can hold on. Love a woman who can not cry. And love a woman who cries. This is the same woman...trying to be strong. Love a woman that challenges you and asks hard questions, she wants deep parts of you. Love a jealous woman. You are worthy of a flag. A banner. No halvies. No shares. You are someone's whole universe. Claimed. Love a woman who has been brought to her knees but has risen with her own strength. She can do it again. Love a woman, not because what she lets everyone see...but for her very nuances that the rest of the world will never know. The way she touches her mouth with the tips of her fingers when she wants to hide her words. The soft butterfly flutter of her lashes as she sleeps on your chest in trust. The curve of her throat. The pulse in her wrist. The arch in her back. The delicate round of her belly. The poem that she is. The song that she is. The thunder roll and lightening white that she is. The anchor that she is. The loosed kite that she is.

Love the woman that frightens you the most. And then leap into her like jumping off into the abyss. That's the One. Because only when it is scary, is it worthy. Love was never meant to be tepid or safe.