To his Young Girlfirend

My lips close tight before your tongue's advance,
A second hymen, when never I had a first.
Though your delights lie eager upon me,
Our distance's scale is the turning world,
You St Thomas, I the Asian deserts.
Not near far enough to give my defense a chance.

But my morning's first light is in your face,
Morning, that time when color flows back across the earth:
The greens of grass and leaves,
Are in your eyes,
The yellows of daffodils, forsythia,
Are in your hair,
The golds and reds of tulips,
Are in your lips,
The whites of apple blossoms, dogwood, magnolia
Are in your skin,
And the air, sweet with promise of what's to come,
Livens your voice.

And with morning, the evening comes,
The color drains out again,
Tree trunks, branches, poles, roads, cars, houses
All return gray,
All whisper that you will soon've gone away.
Friends' faces in streetlight look unknown and strange.
Forms flicker on huge TVs through curtained window panes.
And the best one can manage is to watch
Baseball while lying stuporous on the recliner,
Prey to the mind's nightmare taunts:
What can evening offer that morning wants?

Your first kiss tastes of dawn renewed,
Your face shines like the sun's first flame.
Yet in your horizon my sunset can be viewed,
Eyes open, my resistance an eager virgin's losing game.

Your tongue has long since had its way,
My seed within in you sown,
Not wasted, as it itself is waste,
Cut sterile long years ago.

If not for my lottery win that day,
You in a young man's arms might play.