Carnal Knowledge

Your lower lip needs to be a book-cover,
Dog-eared, pink-papered, full with knowing,
My fingers will never stop with the preface,
They will grab your jaw where it falls away,
Pull your flesh down its slow cherry path,
Fetch your eyes from their cloudy heights
into cupped hands that wander your hair
like lost snakes of Eden feeling their way
into Paradise, one soft truth at a time,
break the tresses where night undresses;
Bend the stem of your neck into me,
I shall wait for your hitched breath
to learn your body in unfocused eyes
and mark your skin with knowledge.