Containers

Containers
"I studied biology," I start,
     stroking the secret skin behind your ear.

"I know," you sigh, cheekbone digging its divot into my sternum with each breath,
"Human anatomy."
 You tweak my nipple, the only proper punctuation to a joke when you're naked.

"No, I was saying something,"
I can't stop your pinching rolling thumb with my words, so I cover it with my hand.
"I was saying something important.
Human bodies are sixty-five percent water, and water flows to fit its container."

You're only half listening to me,
     one ear pressed tight against the tremor of my heartbeat, the rush of my lung as I press on.

"We are made to be containers, made for the things we hold."

Just our bodies, now,
     not even considering the way each tooth of each blood-bone cog of my mind was made to hold                the hesitation of your hand on a doorknob,
          the thud of your hip on the mattress.
Just our bodies,
     We were made to contain each other.

The fit of mouth to mouth is no surprise, in their symmetry,
     But the same lips that purse in perfect strength around a nipple
     Spread wide around a shaft.
The hollow of the upper palate is made to cup the probing head
     When the flaring groove is stroked over the deftest part of the tongue.

Breasts hold the milk that nourishes our infant bellies
But they then swell to hold our first interest in sex,
     Draped in sweaters and shrouded in the mystery of the lingerie sale insert,
     Smelling of newsprint and the pleasures of the back seats of cars.

And mine hold you now in your smiling half-rest,
Hold the echoes of your happy breath down their white canyon.

If we were made only to contain half the chromosomes we needed
     To make another us,
Only to hold them long enough to get them where they're going,
If sex were just as small at the dot of ink on a page at the end of a sentence,
Why is my tangle of nerves tucked into the front wall,
     over the hidden bone,
Crooked to fit the curious finger in our most searching mudras?

This is what I want to tell you, what's important about our bodies,
     How we're made.
But you're already starting to sigh and shift your eyes,
Reading the invisible list of personal failings you'll carry down in your stomach like stones
     When the alarm goes off.

There's a story that's popular with our friends this month,
     An adage posted and re-posted.
Two wolves live inside us all, one built of love and acceptance,
The other with hate and fear instead of sinews stretched over its bones.
They lock in lifelong struggle until one, exhausted, can rise no more.
     "Which one wins, Grandfather?"
His eyes spark, flint and fire both.
     "The one you feed."
This is worn around like a leather jacket,
The power of positive thinking of badasses.
I want to shake you awake from your doze
Tell you the message got diluted with complications
     Ground down to make the concrete base for a needless platitude
The question's not who wins, but

What could ever be weak and worthless that was built to hold two fighting wolves?

You were made a coffee can flocked with velvet rust,
     Made all over to hold the jangling copper wires of anxiety.
     Built to shelter the paper nests of wasps under the eaves of your thoughts.
It's why your easy smile, your now smile, resting between my breasts,
     My favorite
It's why your easy smile is the hardest one to come by.

But I was made a pair of heavy leather gloves.
I was made to hold you in my grasp without breaking
     and to yield to your hands pushing inside me.
I was made to protect us both from the sharpness closest to our grasp.
I was made to contain your dirty jokes, your respite, your lightness, your strength.
I was made to store your pleasure and the gasp of your release.

It's still early for bed, love.
Fill me up again.
Fill me up and let me pour joy out on your skin one more time.