Morning-Three
By Rod McKuen
I rise up singing from your belly,
like some glad keeper of the palace swans
content to serve your navel
as an acolyte would serve his unseen god
and take your perspiration as communion.
Rolling now together in our bedroom world
we'll map out elbows and each other's backs.
There are some parts of you
that have no highways.
Hairy forests cover even well worn paths
but every forest has its own surprises
and the hiker coming through the glade
can only marvel as Columbus would
at sailing past the old world's edge.
Volcanos now erupting
down below your belly
are saying that your breakfast
is past due.
Orange juice then
or coffee and brioche
or one more gentle feeding mouth to mouth.
I'll wash the sleep from off your eyes
and rub myself in shoulder smells
and touch your back from top to bottom
too happy to remember other backs.
Back into the forest
to lose myself and find myself
and fall back dying once again
in your arms only,
and wound your breasts
with new hands one more time.
The day gone or going
we'll bus from room to room
and I'll protest the eyes of furniture
or flowers
or anything that looks at you but me.
I like the bed unmade.
It smells like each of us in turn
and each of us together.
I know the telephone
is crying for attention.
A minute more.
It's not the telephone at all
but celebrations of a brand-new kind
ringing from the watching walls.
Look at us.
It doesn't matter any more.
You like my weight and too fast breath
and smile in disbelief.
I'm smiling too.
I've yet to think of last week's friend
or Julie Andrews' face.