Luster
       

Come gondola tongue, come narrow
passage, come lunar water vapor, nightfall
summoning the tide of him up and up

this begging shore, shining cliffs, his hard
hands a storm cloud in our shared sky,
synchronous orbit luring me to the thunder

of that body, silver satellite, the long milk he laps
from the canal of my spine, I'm all eyelash
and inhale, all estuary, all course and crushed

by the meteor of him, by the crater pretending
to be sea in the telescope's lone and limpid
eye, our only cries were answers, crawling

together through a light so clear it felt like wind,
like undertow you could—will—drown in.

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Copyright © 2020 Jess Smith All rights reserved
from Southern Indiana Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission