honey

I have a boy who melts in my palms.

He is a chip of frozen honeycomb

I do not press him into my palm

Or try to bite in too early

Like many others do.

I wait.

And I let him slowly release the tension

from his shoulders

And he flows slowly across me

If I hold a torch to him

He will seize up

But he surrounds me

And melts in my palms

I would melt in his too

I hold him and he tells me

He is mine

Blissfully

We can be on a couch

Or the floor or the top

Of a hill looking at the town

We own

Wherever we are we are

Sitting in the long grass

Under that peach tree

His mouth leaks the nectar

And with a laugh

I press the pad of my thumb

To his chin

And while it is there

I lift him to me

And his to mine

The peaches are the best

In August and

On that late afternoon

Was the first time

It was August

They were sweet

He let the memory of his last bite

Swell through my lips

The juice fermenting as we sat

In the sun

The gentle press on his on mine

Mine on his

And when we wanted to

All we had to do was

Extend upwards

And twist a peach away

Our fingers on the

Pulpy roundness gentle

As we had been moments before

The peaches were not crisp like some are

Soft as the dirt they

Came from

They gave way as we pulled them apart

No more worry about

The stickiness

On our knuckles

And we each had half of a dripping peach

Our eyes asking

Again

Again

And so

With the blessing of the hot afternoon

He brought me to the river

Like that one

In the book

We rinsed our hands

As duck pursued their life-long mates

On the opposite bank

And We Ours

By the time the shadows of the oaks

had paced backstroke slowly

across the river

He was asleep

On my chest

Melted

A pool as liquid as the gentle lap below