Need
(Written 2010 0220)

It’s a burgeoning sneeze
Celery stalk ribbons sprouting
Serious series of square knots
Crowned by a leaf flurry
Tickling turbinate scrolls
It’s a long overdue stretch
Gargoyles crouched and arched
Liberated—finally—from
Imposed gape sentence
Do you EVER need to fall in love?

It’s the sticky, thick requisite
for soothing, placid water
glittering into your mouth
and shimmering down your throat
and curling into your belly.
It’s melatonin sedated squirrels
Time traveling from fall to spring
Third eye sensitized
and scanning for light
Do you ever NEED to fall in love?

Some days, I need to hear a new song
Your favorite song, even if it’s not
the type of music that I usually listen to.
I want to know why it makes you sing while you drive
Let that song’s beat and energy convince
my muscles that the only recourse is dance!
Throw open windows in blistering, stagnant rooms
Fancy the clatter and clamor of extraordinary winds
Some days *I* need to fall in love.

Lean back onto the grass, picnic table, sandstone
Ten o’clock PM, swathed in sable
Crisp splinters of ancient light
Star fires ignited, crystal torches blaze
Illuminate eternal space.
Systematically tag and name points together
Puzzle and decipher constellations
of wishes and dreams.
Do YOU ever need to fall in love?

Poised on praying mantis legs
Anticipation clicking across nerve nodes
Will it be a slight finger brush? Hands colliding? Arms tangled?
Increased gravity as distance between celestial objects decreases
Marshmallow spontaneous combustion
Forgotten too long over campfire embers
Disoriented by intricate iris patterns and distinctive eye color
Or perhaps it will simply be a deviation from an embrace
Slight pause incited by tantalizing friction
Opposition of smooth and rough
Resulting in an abrupt oblique turn...
Do YOU ever CRAVE the thrill of discovery?

Some days, I need to wake up
Snuggled up to oceans, dew on my eyelashes
Strong arms draped across, wrapped around
Sheets stripped of fevers by glaciers
Some days, I need to wake up
With one leg thrown over mountains
Ear pressed up to the earth
Listening to the heart beat of volcanoes
Some days--I NEED to fall in love.