Once a young boy in Iowa
collected stamps, played baseball,
pasted pictures of space ships
in his scrapbook,
longed to touch your skin,
hoped beyond dreaming that you exist.

Today, when you climbed laughing
from the surf, my darting tongue,
like a sanderling pecking
after each departing wave,
took the salt from your neck,
your nipples, your navel.

In fields of corn stubble
he painted the bigness of the place
on his heart. He thought if he could run
his fingers along the back of the sky,
it would not be as smooth as the skin
of the woman he would one day love.

You step from the shower, beads of water
on your back–each an ocean for me to swim–
and I watch breathless as your towel
drinks from every cup of you.
My lips draw me to the place between your breasts
to be kissed by your skin.

He watched a distant storm
darken the next county,
wondered at the lightning,
and standing in the sunlight,
marveled that people way over there
felt rain on their skin.

Now my skin, wet with sweat
and the water of love,
slides along the length of you–
your skin burns and flashes in the darkness
and I feel again the surf,
taste again the sea.