six theses on love
by Arden
1.
in the evening, your face aglow in the rose light, i trace your lips with my finger, along your cupid’s bow. i like to rest in the dip, where the peaks of the bow meet. slowly run my finger up and down the vertical hollow. your vestigial traces. the philtrum takes its name from the greek word meaning love charm. how i wish i could wear you around my wrist. it is said that an angel presses their fingertip just above lip the moment we’re born. and so the secrets of the universe are sealed into silence. we forget everything we know. but you who live in inbetweens, you haven’t forgotten. along your vermillion border, the tip of my finger is met by down. oh soft feathers! sweet pubescence! i love how, at the corner of your mouth, feathers lengthen and curl. when i trace back to the middle, crossing from upper to lower lip, you pucker. orbicularis oris muscle strong. together, lips pressed to lips, we are a quiver of arrows. heart-shaped wounds of eros.
2.
long before i first ran my fingernails down your armpit, i gave you a book of poems: this wound is a world. we had to become disparate points in spacetime. these poems were our tunnel. years before we’d met, i’d underlined the words, “heaven is a wormhole. / i first found it in another man’s armpit.” the first time you asked me to scratch yours, i delighted. starting at the elbow until i reached the hollow, where my nails got lost in your brown curls. the most perfect spiral galaxy. sometime between the book of poems and this encounter, you’ll send me a poem of your own: “i know you like / to tell me stories / in my dreams / write about wounds / you keep open / why close the thing / that makes you a window / or a door / that swings with the wind / why plug the holes / in your heart / instead / you cut it out / hold it against my cheek / can you hear me now?” at night, you open your arm to me, and i find my home in your nook. ear pressed against wormhole, i want you to know that i’m listening.
3.
oh my little hawk! after i trace your lips, i move upward to your beak. sharp and hooked. but you are so far from bird of prey. neither predator nor raptor, you are soft and sweet. perhaps i’m being too literal here. though you are strong, resilient, wise, i’ve never once felt hunted. when your mouth is between my legs, and the tip of your beak nuzzles into my pubic mound, i am undone. after i come, you kiss me, mouth fresh with my scent, beak wet with me. am i anthropomorphizing you too much? you once wrote to me “maybe i was always more hawk / keen and shifting / circling and lonesome / high on a perch / looking for you.” now, you rest in my arms, nose pressed to flesh, the heat of your breath releasing as you sigh. oh my little hawk – you found me!
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