beautiful ruin

the Mediterranean coast –
from Marseille
to the edge of Italy.

I come here
for the silence.

the doors have swollen with salt and heat.
to open them
you have to press inward first,
and the old paint loosens beneath the hand,
falling softly in pale curls.

light drifts through the rooms all afternoon.
over the table,
the linen left untouched for months,
across my shoulders,
my mouth,
as though it had been sent
for the single purpose
of finding what still aches in me
and laying its warm hands there.

and still
I think of you.

there has never been a place remote enough
to keep you from returning.

olive trees everywhere.
orange trees bowed low with fruit,
their branches dark and patient in the heat.

toward evening
I gather a few oranges against my chest
and carry them inside.

I think of feeding them to you slowly,
segment by segment,
watching sweetness shine briefly on your mouth,
run down your throat,
your bare chest,
over my hands –

the tender waste of it,
the abundance.

and how I would kiss you then
as though nothing had ever been forbidden.

more than anything,
I want to kiss you now.

I remember you on the shore at dusk,
smoking quietly beside the water,
the sea turning dark behind you.

ash falling from your fingers
into the wind.

you kept looking beyond the horizon
as though someone were calling you farther out.

what did you see there?

I saw only you.

the last light resting on your face.
your beautiful, distant mouth.
the small gold flare between your fingers.

I see you still.

and desire moves through me
with the same slow tide,
again and again returning.

and I love you –
with all the beautiful ruin
that love becomes.