From the Book of Balance

By Richard Ryal

duties turned your skin from opal to moonstone,
your sweat into morning mist, so make me
a drum face to your beater, confess your litany of shove tides,
follow the sluicing that pulls a river against its bed,
sea to sand, tides to land’s stubborn devotion

beauty resembles nothing but itself so please don’t paint it over,
I love the way the room wants to leave with you,
the mirror tries to memorize you for the coming dark
coming home from a raucous storm,
we shake each other rainless, dancing and
suddenly feathered, not cautious, no,
the spirit is wailing, the flesh weed,
we sniff the spice maker’s kitchen again

bitter is not always sour but when we finish I wonder
why our oils turn stale so fast, affection’s vinegar,
why pushing up and out against a vacuum, our sheets
too quickly cool and the room we leave
watches us slip into the hall to another room

the Book of Balances is firm, go long,
work never ends but it lays the best ballast
for the future’s keel and always life’s mandate
is to keep the keel in the current

we need new measures for age, no more weights or lengths,
just the best we’ll leave behind with our histories
forgotten at last, our legacies ascribed to no author
but lasting in a way we couldn’t

we can’t renounce the wheels that sped us here,
the wine aches for the mouth, we know the pull,
we move lightly but even birds leave footprints