Perservering Of Palms Poem by Warren Falcon

for Karthik, once again,
'The light foot hears you
and the brightness begins...' - Pindar


that salt adheres to the palm
proclaiming only this
that purchase requires both
sweat and the one hidden pearl
of scraped touch

much there is in the hand
bequeathed;
beneath the thigh the grit
burns smooth the groove
where you lay

your wonder - that purchase
of kisses, too, with salt,
crystalline, rimed - is hard

Timed little breath-hairs,
inscaped light, red, turned
the more out in layered traces

delicate,

veins strain the
more for tongues' hard press

tapered fingers flame
that these lips may chaff/
chafe more the love
from the grain which
skin frames from
cloudless scansions

Obdurate Sun,
unclothe now,
apparel dispose,
appear beyond
familiar feet,
cast off,
at last unremembered

legs arc,
display,
sunrise splay
without restraint
tangled limbs arch,

on summit burn
where doffed shoes
obey Flame which
does not snuff nor cinder

Kindled limbs
do not go out
do not ash hot
to powder
nor the colder grow

though each is made distinct,
distinguished, though each
is extended, extinguished in
the other's contradiction
neither brother or lover

but both
be perseverance
of palms,
of salt

Preserve.