Some notion of her face and like a forest
on fire by desire for a spark I am happy,
my skin burns, blood to the boil, and all
the warnings my troubled companions try
to drown me with are like oxygen and gasoline.

When I think of her soprano in cheer
and alto in storytelling,
my chest ignites like the aurora borealis,
ribcage and spine like a pagoda
exploded into spindles and sticks.

If I am house, she is tornado.
Like linen, old socks and journals
she lays bare all my dark privacies
that she, bemused, might sort and choose
the outer shell to an inner self.

She brings visions of everything fuzzy
and close–noses, friends, a baby in lap,
the world blurred, colorful, near.
Some notion of her face and I am
everything tall and exuberant:

spinnakers, church bells, oriflammes
on parapets, Ionic columns,
parrots on palm trees, huzza and holy
rollers, a muezzin on his minaret
announcing, aspiring to something higher.