X-Rated

XX, OO, and then you're gone,
As ever on the run; but I
Am like that ever-earnest John--
Incomprehensibly alive,
Entrenched where dead and quick now lie--
Parsing syllables of your breath,
Deciphering why I survive
Amidst exigencies of death.

I ponder if this double X
Denotes selection of my kiss,
My lips, to know the mouth your sex,
Since fateful Juliette, has promised.
Or could this be your mark, your brash,
Illiterate surrendering
Of all your hills and valleys lush
To claims of my imagining?

Do your arms twice encircle me
As you depart and thus impress
On me your breasts, a memory
To dress a need, a nakedness
Become indecent as a death
Without protest? As though OO
Might hold me and your buffered breath
Deny that you or I must go?

Extremity, could it reply,
Might cry, “I X each centered B,
Not tenderly, and where you lie
My O enfolds you, pressed to me
To force your breath, your thighs. At this,
You soften, whispering “my C,”
And blush to know your words are bliss
As sweet as when you X my P.