He can pierce my intentions with a needle
through paper butterfly wings,
with a hand too familiar
to the ways and weakness of my skin.

He knows with a breath
the color of my desire,
and with his arctic eyes
he beckons the river in me.

The summer wheat can sense the breeze
preceding my rush of fear,
the knowledge of my place
in a land between wanting and taking,
achieving neither
and feeding both to lawlessness.

A single word can be a kiss
or a brand upon my paper wish,
and both at once
with a forbidding sound
and a sideward glance
can his tangled thoughts
be known to me.