oh white paper night

Oh white paper night,

I want to bear you up.

On your svelte shoulders hangs

lightly the coming day.

The steam that rises from the tubs stills us two in the warm waters,

our bodies listen and absorb

the warmth that must.

It must, tonight,

with the sight of salt waters ambient-blue before us,

when there is an exhale after pain,

must cleanse our shudder-racked eyelids.

Oh white paper night,

your clear back on which I write is a gift:

God does not let the lonely die but lets them drift

in loneliness, for a little while.

I while away with you, white paper night,

my bell-rung ears no longer jarred,

but in an exhaling night, a breathing

night full of steam and sighs. I watch you climb in and out

of the water, resting your thighs like Gary Snyder

in a trance across each other, a mystic

watching me drift for a little while, naked.

I want to reach out and grasp your hands

as we walk, strut, tithe our bodies at the beach -

you, the unwritten-on of nights.

Of all the nights I waited you were waiting with me,

hanging there in my future unknown-of

but when I feel instead of thinking

I wonder, --

did I hope for

you even then,

oh white paper night,

before you were

even a dream?

Were you already

breathing inside

my memory?