The tension spanning your tongue
carries the words escaping your mouth,
pain igniting its tip, blistering your lips
with white heat, your longing, melting
skin off like dead bees pouring
from a smoking hive.
I listen intently
for the first time ever, exposing myself
to the silence simmering in the spaces
between your teeth —

the bare skin of our arms pelted with little
velvet bodies, our pores soaking in wild honey,
sharp edges of wings embedded inside.
No stings.

You give yourself over fully to me — your palate,
your tongue, the soft tissues of your throat —
what Rubens gave to the sun’s illumination,
stealing his fingers across a woman’s thigh,
what Van Gogh’s brushes heightened.

Whatever it means, why not say it hurts —
the pain slamming into us, the want, the beauty?
I will call it beauty, kiss your raw lips
unlike I have ever kissed you before.