tenderness

Tender like furious flesh on a hot day
Tender like birds in springtime singing their outdated but long-awaited love song
Tender like your lips padded with sweat
chewed and chapped after a day of city pressures
Tender is the evening that waits for our dear souls
and together we shall be if tenderness is the appropriate word
and if tenderness allows it, we will embrace her
with her beautiful curves and her misleading warm smile
she is nowhere to be seen
only felt through thin and thick air
And yet she does not escape
but rests gently cupping your sweet face with her hands
kissing the velvet that layers your bones
carefully moulding the triangle of your jaw
And then a tear falls...
Tenderness is relief from everything that exists
tenderness is a breath of air on first awakening
and you breathe so well
it comforts me to cup my hand around your face
and feel so little between hand and skin
that air is pure
free from thoughts of labour even love
that breath is the first
first and last are sacred
a hot flush ripples my skin as
as I think of my absent love
I dance around you like a wavering leaf
because you shape and colour the nature that I have
and I look to you for meek approval
of something so needless and merciless.