More Than Love Poem by Roy William Gotaas

When one lies at night in the arms of a ghost,
What can one give but tears?
Are there no words to speak this kind of love?

In the half light I wait,  
Watching you move around the room,
Clothed, then slowly naked piece by piece
And am moved in every fibre of me.

Tears and blood rise as you show me,
(With how much deliberate carelessness?)
How beautiful you are.

How much is child or man that sees your perfect breasts,
Dark-nippled proud, and wants to suckle?
How much is child or dying man that watches your hips 
As they sway, and thinks of birth?

I search for ways to tell you 
What you must already know from mirrors
But no words are ever new enough 
- As the wonder of you is new to me.

I understand at last what people mean
When they say they’re moved by beauty:
As I am shaken to the depths by you.

You walk towards me  as  if the earth 
Had ceded you the right to plant each foot
And the stirred air forecasts your scent,
As you slide between the sheets beside me.

Your fingers trace along my scars,
And put me back together - such hands you have
That make me whole again.

Afterwards when I lie in your arms 
- Tasting you in breathing your scent -
You touch me languidly, stay tight against me,
Because that’s where you want to be:

Then I’ve come home at last - 
No past, no pain, no fear, no haunting:
Only a future to be like this.

Simply, only this heaven-before-death,  
Till my dying breath’s end -
There is more than love, wordlessly more -
Je t’adore.... je t’adore.