This is my secret pleasure.

honey-sweet, I taste it

on my tongue, the smell of me

the old cruel ache that builds

like pain, the friction of the skin

I lose myself , become all nerves and

skin and heat, drowned in coming

jolting slow in long soft waves.

at times like this I lie alone

marooned in quiet, adrift

from outside sounds, the room

is filled with shadows, dusk

the darkening day, time lengthens

settles like a cloud, my dreaming self

is stirring, floating free. I’m smiling

at the ripeness of the world

rocked in lust, in grief

the tenderness of perfect ease.