ROMANCE Poem: Silver Togue, by Leven Beeuwsaert

I named him
silver tongue
after the shade of trees.
Between the meeting of our voices,
he sang a blasphemous song.
The way cacti splice open
for the sun under the anvil of time…
The way their porcupine spines
cut its rays and make the gods bleed.

It was like eyes looking into eyes
turning to dust
hatching stone…
looking into the abyss
becoming the abyss
the hiding from the unspoken,
the casting of the unknown.

I have only this skin.
He is draped in armor
like solid matter
like the invention of sin.
The trees howl
without letting him out.
Without him knowing they
save his place under their
damp foundations…

I want to take him there.

Where there is a distinctive taste
of beauty
an innocence of the un-bound.
a fervor towards pepper-spiked tea
a revulsion to stale spice
a kiss of truth burning his
esophagus on the way down.