Coy

what’s the point of a mistress

who isn’t coy, doesn’t flirt

with your Panama and

welcome you into

tropics (not of Capricorn, never of Cancer),

Brazilian rainforests

slithering up your Amazon

into her

Central America?

Shrouded shoulders don’t seduce,

unkindled loins know no fire,

love lives for gently stroking

this and that, sparks in the

electric fur of nerves better

and muscles more, inside a voice

softer than the rain’s hands, a ghost

who knows (especially) who the moon is,

echoing (the name of the sun) in {your

eyes} inside the sky of mine.

Let’s always be foolish and greedy

the way wisdom allows,

feasting on pomegranates and honey

in a sea of yogurt with mango-ginger white stilton and

prosciutto in the moonlight,

while the river whispers

secrets about the trees

(the rain is too busy with her flowers to believe)

to the elephants in the sky.