Desert Kisses

Every night for the past two weeks

I have opened Apple Maps and with

giddy fingers traced the path between us

like a troglodyte sketching her memoir.

It would take approximately 3,626,000 steps

for me to reach your loving arms.

I think of every city, every flora, every fauna -

all those skyscrapers, those perennials, those bio-indefinites -

miracles of man and nature perfectly

ignored for the simple blessing of seeing you,

you, the universe’s greatest love goddess effigy,

you, with your Keane eyes,

your Lempicka smile, your Titian luminance.

While my odyssey could take

as long to reach your everlasting arms

as it did for that great Ithacan king,

the promise of your smile overpowers

the strength of a thousand Scyllas.

I wasted years of poetry on

girls who refused to hear it,

But while this White Plague may delay

the extent of your love for

these gifts or this poem or me,

I know it will be there still and for that,

I will still be here.

Our violet delights will have their violet ends,

to be consumed in absolute like the

kiss of brushfire and gunpowder.