15 May Love Language, by Ava Joa
Lessons taught between breaths
Our lazy voices thick with sleep.
Tones that roll like grassy hills,
Fields where I am determined to till familiarity
Though I am burdened by my tripping tongue.
A corner of your mind reserved for dreaming,
Though your reaching arms still seem to find me
Mumbling in the syllables of your childhood
— Soup and Shoe and Sweet and Hot —
We trace the palm-line paths on the page
As you teach me to draw the ocean from your name
Birdlike mimicry, broken only when your lips touch mine.
Though unsure if it is praise or a ploy to stop my clumsy repetitions
Blue light wreaths your face
In kaleidoscopic beauty.
You dissolve into fractals, composed of ever shrinking beams
As your glow traces patterns upon my skin,
Gentle as kisses
Shadows of light spread by some far off sun