White Oak Park
Soaking
in love
like we’re some modern Adam and Eve
God decided to give another garden,
we dive in this river,
the hillside crowded
with open magnolias,
green scents drenching the air.
Caught in cool dizzying circles
we gasp for breath.
White foam floats round my elbows
while the distant noise of average people
drifts away.
They won’t climb down
and discover this forbidden passion
married people aren’t supposed to
have,
and I remember my old English Prof.
saying sex is the closest
we ever get to God.Emerald water seeps in
all my hidden places
around our entangled legs
your long brown hair loose
hands swimming over me.
Downstream we clamber
onto
a smooth grey rock
to sun dry.
At dusk finding our
stump
of heaped clothes,
we follow the path back
believing ourselves
the two most beautiful people
anywhere
—Cheryl Denise,
Philippi, West Virginia, is author of I
Saw God Dancing, the collection of
poetry from which "Mother God"
comes and which was awarded first place
in the 1998 West Virginia Writers Annual
Spring Competition.
|
