Not Ever Again

This cannot be the place, the end of the way,
I wake up in this body as in a marble quarry,
early abandoned — All warmth gone.
The world recedes in the distance,
the suburbs, the freeways,
the hand who invites me to a fuller life,
a higher lake— Nothing stays.
Except that ongoing song of flesh
pulsing in the bones, thicker than honey.
And I don’t have enough soul to dismiss
this melody; notes, sounds
filling my mouth, moving in me —
Incorporeal salvation has no meaning today,
since lying on my back once, on the asphalt,
the earth felt like a bed of moss,
my thighs of coral — ablaze.
Why should I pretend there is another joy ?
— It’s a lie. This cannot be the place,
the end of the way. I want to wake up one
more morning, feeling the city trembling,
my lover’s hand on my belly — Everything near.
The sea of fire under the crust of the earth,
the stars and planets on top of skycrapers.
Wild, urgent, never removed. Not of anyone.
Not of anything, ever again.
Listen to me now — not ever again.