elemental

fire
i’d never wish to be like fire
never wished to be fire
except to match you blaze for blaze
to rage on and on in the arid forest
where we stood
naked trees stripped of bark and leaf
bared arms and bodies reaching towards each other
under the twin suns of our hearts
in the invincible summer of our minds
where our uncontrollable bush-fire would devour
everything in its path
a smoldering salamander that would
finally
like the Ouroboros
consume even itself
i never thought our love would rise
from the ashes blanketing the course of our
all-consuming conflagration
rise like a phoenix
to soar for yet another five hundred years
and but for all that
i’d never wish to be like fire



air
when i wished to be like air
i thought i’d never be in anyone’s control
never caught
never stay caught
i never thought i’d feel so adrift
unrooted
rootless
never thought i’d be completely invisible
unseen and unheard
except through the things i touch
pass through
through the aftermath i leave in my wake
and even then
only when i’m out of control
when i wished to be like air
i really wished to be air enclosed in the bubble
of your soul
air on which you float
i never thought i’d be the wild wind
out of control in my desperate despair
to carry you away in my whirlwind of desire
i never thought i’d be the wild wind
from which you flee
when i wished to be like air


loam
then i’d wish to be like loam
only to be the soil beneath your feet
the earth into which your hands delve to unearth
the secrets and treasures i’ve hidden there
anticipating your discovery
such as the white gleaming bones of your skeleton
when you laid in me and i blanketed you
to shield you from wind and flame
where you fell asleep and woke again
in a different dress of flesh
to excavate deep into my core
more than your bones you stole my bones
wore the hairpins of my fingers in your hair
adorned yourself with the jeweled hoard
of my kidney stones and liver
my lungs and heart
taken from the silk pouch of my stomach
you tied the length of my intestines around your wrists
when you jumped off the cliff
on which you’d stood as you fed parts of me
you stripped off your body
bit by bit by bit
into a bonfire
and later tossed my ashes into the startled gasp of air
if only to be the last to feel your living body
to be the soil that formed the cliff from which you leapt
then i’d wish to be like loam



water
yet i’d never wish to be like water
because i am water
poured into the ceramic pitcher of this body
unwillingly taking a form that was never true
or mine
i tremble waiting for your dive that
slices only deep and deeper into me
leaving behind you a fleeting scar
of air bubbles
waiting for you to take that plunge
into the as yet unexplored depths
where sea monsters frolic
and his long-suffering mother kept house for Grendel
and you tried to stab an ineffectual Hrunting
into my waterbed
but then you strike blindly
at the dense walls of the flagon’s womb
and pierce the amniotic sac with strong bare fists
you pour me from the prison of the pitcher
drink the life of me from the cup of your hands
and you are ready to dive into me
again and again and again
until the clay of your body dissolves
and all that’s left of you is foam
would our love continue to flare even then
yet i’d never wish to be like water