Wet, dry. Hot, wet.

We had spoken about this –
When I gave you my safeword.
We had exchanged safewords before.
I sighed.

I felt your fingertips move down my back
Your rapid breathing heightened my excitement
As I turned expectantly :
Your hot flush still drying, cooling
on my chest, my belly and my thighs…

Your hesitation had been overridden
(please override my weakness and my fear)

In our silence

Interrupted

By the sudden shock of a first strike
And again, before recovery was full
Again!
Please punish me, again:
I hear your voice still anguished in the night

Anti-Atlas

There is a grandeur in the landscape, lifted up and uplifting
and dry, or dried in brightening air.

It is matched by an earnestness amongst the people
who have been hardened in the ways of nature and cooperatives
but can now hold higher hopes out for their children, who are
open-faced with dark and shy and curious, serious eyes
burning through the open groves and scattered plots
and stooping limestone crags, towering
over the poverty of older lives, sheltered with their animals;

Living together in resilience in adversity, for however many
years and days of grace and gratitude god sends…