once I drove through Zion
the pitch of night’s blackness a sheet
stars streaked the sky
with no modesty
they weighed me down
with their
luminary lovemaking
older stars against
older still rocks
I was alone then but
now
you are an atom
in the wilderness of my breast
you speak of flowers and petals
budding burgeoning fading falling like adam
you flirt with color
as if you know something
more than what has been painted
against skies stretched
between two cities where
every story has a train depot, an airport
a shipyard where lovers meet
leaning deeply into the metal of transport
nuclear magnolia he whispers
alchemy of scent and atom
on her skin presses indents
maybe atom and adam are firsts
of all stories
teasing the sounds
across tongue and space
flipping inside the mouth until sound
and meanings blur
you invite me to rest
in fringed gentian beneath peaks
and admire peonies
the size of saucers
lining the stone wall of your garden
when I stroll city streets
bending over plastic buckets
to inhale the heady perfume
of tuberose cuts
I imagine you
and your fondness for blooms
every moment I am awake
the wonder of your eyes
widening at flowers
in the early day and under
the cover of starry deep night
those lovemaking stars illuminating
atmospheric flare the scent
of skin
makes my heart
detonate
Jennifer Pons studied her MFA with a teaching fellowship at University of Arizona in another place and time. She teaches high school English in Portland, OR. Locusts and Wild Honey is her manuscript-in-progress. Her work has appeared most recently in Across the Margin.