Peach pit sucked clean.
Cosmic marble. An orchid

in a perpetual garden, or sea glass
brushed smooth by the surf’s rough tongue.

Afternoons we wasted as the sun dipped
below the horizon, stretched out on my bed,

my back arched, your mouth made to amaze
as I climb a trellis into the wild familiar.

My mind hovers over the magnolia trees,
the windows, the deep pond, the open field

where I stood sometimes under the stars
listening to a coyote’s howl, an aching

in the low light of winter.