Savoring a future that may yet hold out for us

The Living To Do
For Vyvian

There is so much life to reconcile. We remind ourselves
that there is yet much more living of it to do. We know this
and laugh anyway looking back at what we cannot change,
wouldn’t even if we could. In your presence, I blush easily.
I must be utterly vulnerable to the agate gaze of your probing
eyes. Before you, my blood rushes like reef fish teeming at
some coral surface and all my predatory hiding is revealed.

This lioness will not devour me and I sense that. Your smile
betrays a tender hunger and I am consumed, not by teeth,
but by lips shaped like crescent moons waiting to fill with
rain. You set stars ablaze in the constellation that fell to
the ground and rose again to make up the soul I call my
own. Your fire sets to my water and together all things
become possible: stream, storm, steam, sense, space.

These are the elementals of love everywhere, even here,
like this, sitting together with our mouths savoring a future
that may yet hold out for us. “A passion for the pale,” said
the sign over your shoulder. And the lion shall stand with the
lamb as I will cherish both fleece and fearlessness, drown
amid the rich provinces of your breaching embrace. There
is so much life to reconcile as there is yet much living to do.

Joseph Gallo
March 3, 2009