Sat in the park reading some poems

It's said cranes need lots of room. How
do they exist so far apart and stay together?

I couldn't stand it, to not be able to see
your body, to not be part of you out of

some genetic modesty. I have trouble
staying asleep without you. I belong to

another world.

_______________________

Approached the loitered some around.
Botanied the self and all its horticultures.

Weedily, strewn lands, folds and more.
A body belonging to another body who

uses it carefully to break all kinds of codes.
And to stroll with, about outside on walks.

Snails, small birds, raccoons, argentine ants.

_____________________________

Formal, a sprawlingness, tonal
as in using your tongue, you

could rattle saints, you
could invent new forms of sex, you

could peel me like an orange,
my sticky white pith, my strings,

my sweet wants.

____________________________

I love the looking, to see over, see giraffes,
to pet the giraffe from a platform, the sexuality

of feeding them, their long black tongues.
How enviable! The old one, the oldest one,

these luscious attachments, you are the way
the sweat of your hands taste. Full of salt,

knowing. You are the sugar you carry inside you.

______________________________

Shy Green Fields by Hugh Behm-Steinberg reprinted for his book, Shy Green Fields (No Tell Books, 2007)