Shaun Anthony McMichael

Long-Distance Aubade

 

I have arrived safely but I left my soul in Lima.

Soul, that lean sheet of being’s schema stretching

through dream and waking.

Look for it in between your bedding, crumpled

like a wedding rose from caressing.

Look for it floating above

the Parque De Amor, the streets strep-throat-slick

from all that kissing.

If you could see the soul, would it look indecent

like holy underwear worn by a sect fermenting

in rectitude as their numbers dwindle?

Or would it more resemble afterglow? All I know

is that without it, I’m a cold assemblage of springs.

My soul, always the quicker of the two,

fled the minute I left you—shapely comfort

that overdraped my whole. Without you

 

I will remain a split and restless spirit

who dreams when he’s awake and wakes

from even his sweetest dreams

of being in bed with you, all of him

embraced in your arms of love-salt sweat

and the sumptuous lace of your breath

telling him to go back to sleep. The longer I go

without, the farther I am,

 

will my skin thin into onion paper?

Or will light no longer pass-through

my eyes, hands, and mouth, my body

becoming obdurate without my spirit?

Will I become more ardent like the devotee

who clings tighter to the unseen

when fewer of the faithful gather?

Or float, dust mote dry, somewhere new.

Red-eyed from my flight, I grope for a cord.

If only a lovers’ connection were umbilical!

I draw open my blinds. Having lost my shade,

I bathe in dawnlight. I will wait awake,

a toppled figure eight, a lemniscate,

until culled, hoping for a dream, a sign,

or a haunting that you are returning,

returning mine, or sending your soul to me.

The Things They Say About Love

 

I thought of all the childish things

to which love is often compared:

rose beds, wide oceans, the highest heavens,

genies in bottles, lollipops, honey.

 

It all made me really hungry

and realize how empty we’d be

without each other, still taking hints

from other blind, desperate searchers.

 

They say love has wings and arms and feels

like fire. Other times like ice or fever.

It’s in the air, makes our world go round,

can be made in clubs or elevators.

 

Love apparently doesn’t cost a thing

unless, of course, you’re broke.

It makes people believe they can fly,

sometimes off bridges.

 

Where are you in the myths of love,

where am I? In those tired songs,

where are those eyes of yours

that makes sweet the new wine,

 

the branches lengthen to grow the grapes,

the games worth playing; the end of the race,

the threshold crossing, feel like home

and all my words trip as they run

 

to meet you in the place

you’ve led me to arrive already.

But knowing all the things compared with love,

I will try each one to give you thanks.

 

For you have made me open again

the chest of childish things and find

they piece together a man who’s found

his honey and will never search again.

 

 

  

Laugh Lines

 

However the skin may sag off my bones,

no matter how alone you feel as you wait

for me to come home, whatever

acerbism I speak into the corners of myself,

of which I forget you are a part,

know that I love you.

 

Words tunnel themselves from our mouths

into our brains, from our brains into our mouths

and the soul waits like a flame in between

the words that seem to confirm or deny its existence.

Words like ‘I love you’.

 

Whenever life feels like a night driving

through an ignited paradise, the dead trees,
naked skeletons, and the moon glowing ghostly,

and your tears hurt like acid rain, know that I love you.

 

Whenever your body feels like a 5am drive through sleet

and your muscles are highway heavy, and no one knows

the pain of just trying to see, know that I love you

 

inexplicably,

because of time or despite it,

 

unsure of all else

 

but that my love is louder than the stainless-steel doors

that seem to slam against us in the cold labyrinths

that are the days, on the other side of which, can you hear it?

is my love calling from home.

 

Know that my love is like a friend at the open gate

before the little house by the garden.

The corners are clean and swept

--for now free of my soot and ash,

a simple act says ‘I love you’ loud enough

for our aging tastes. The face of the friend has aged,

but the laugh lines growing

from the eyes are becoming.