I have always
gone for the throat of love.
Right?  I mean,
what else is there, really?

See, you are wiley…
you have your snares, your wire-traps…
but you know your way
around these woods

you touch those red trunks thick
and feel the moss and know
when that woody heart is open
and thirsty and available

you sense the wondering wildlife
hid nearby and hushed,
and know just how to move thus
and not startle the deer

and how to whistle for the birds,
you trill in practiced ease, that’s you…
touching terrain, scheduling territories,
reading maps and visiting…

spreading out your hunter’s eye
in webs and nets
and next thing you know, why
love is there and snapped

neatly on your leash and sat,
ears cocked, so it knows to roll over,
and speak, and play dead
(with a smile).

But me?  I have eyes that see, inside
those scented trunks concealed with fringey moss,
and ears that hear inside the hearts of harts that crouch so still
and hidden there so neat and underneath the wings of birds.

But I don’t have body, right?
When I move, I snap twigs and crash,
noise and blunder, all bleeding desire
and wet contagious bonding sticky heart

that catches on the thorns you deftly step around
and tears on twigs and snags on gnarly cedar fingers
and then clutches at the brush to cover
my embarrassing naked need of something other

my need of what I was not even given
the dignity of denial,
denial of my heart-felt soft request…
like a tree not granted the dignity of a forest.

So I just jump que sera sera, aiming for
the things I see inside the hearts of trees and
the things I hear singing inside the flight of blackbirds in the night…
and the humming of the bees

…and find myself missing…
…over and over and over…
and thumping hard on stones and tumbled
scratched and hotly embarrassed

by yet another fruitless
leap of faith while moments
walks right past me,
walk right thru me!

I imagine you, your skillful
deft dread lilting steps
and secret smile of success,
you equipped and given grace that matches…

and moving
in the forest ways
and easy and always
so at home.

Finally I pick myself up,
and listen, look, and get a bead
on that pulsing place so secret there,
the tender hollow of its neck,

love,
and I get myself ready to go
for the throat of love once more,
and missing take my deep compelled encore

in hope that I will
catch my quarry, or am still
and never need to long
or ever jump again.