Sestina for the Unforgivable

I woke with your name still in my mouth
I swore I could feel your softsweet breath
still on my neck my whole body
a prayer bowl ringing my trembling heart
still sounding in my ears hearing you
asking me to jump to let myself fall

with you into candescent possibility to fall
with you into Cupid’s redwet open mouth
though you barely knew me I barely knew you
Unbidden invitation quickening my breath
machine press ratcheting on my heart
aching to feel your body on my body

again aching to say yes to let my soft body
drop like a stone. Feeling why we call it falling
in love that same vertiginous feeling heart
lying up your throat flying into your mouth
gravity squeezing out your panicked breath
making a sky diver out of you

Forbidden desire. Six months married me & you
a husband for a decade, our bodies
already claimed by different homes breath
promised to others we promised not to fall
in love or at least promised to keep mouthing
polyamorous shibboleths, pretend our hearts

still kept their vows pretend my heart
had not already found its signature echoed in yours
Promises already crumbling in my mouth
drowned in the knowing river of my body
knowing I could not wait even until the fall
but would steal from February’s frosted breath

the courage to spring to let forbidden breath
escape my lips admit my guilty heart
had already decided to let the struck match fall
on the tinder of my life had already fastened to you
The only question being: did my body
already know searching for your mouth

from our first breaths that something feral in you
would flush my naked heart out of my body
invite me to fall with your name forever in my mouth?

Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash