aubade, II

maybe you're sleeping now,
your soft suede eyeballs rolled safely
like some bassinet inside your forehead,
closing their soft unlaquered lashes
against the swell, ebb, roar of
your hearts untempered ocean,
swelling proud and diaphanous,
the swirling stride like a pattern in marble.

where are you now; are you breathing?
what could you possibly be doing without me?

and i think how you are like a strawberry
of unimpeached beauty whose flesh one rolls about
on the tongue with eyes closed tight,
heart clicking quickly like thunder, a rail-car in a storm;

whom one devours slowly and without caution;
only really registering the beauty of the thing
once one has seen it completely destroyed.