Something New

Note to readers:  Lately, I'm polishing up both my poetry and prose, as I will be doing a ton of submitting in the next few months, to literary magazines and contests.  This is a new poem that I just finished, hoping it is the first step in producing material worthy of publication.  Enjoy.

Manned

for the first to let me touch

when NASA announced the suspension of the shuttle program

I was suddenly slapped by recollection of your thighs,

cosmic, other worldly vessels

all thrusters and rockets

sparking thought of

exotic lands

you taught my fingers to be payloads,

delivered expertly, with missions in mind,

you hid your treasures, a trove on Mars

and demanded I find a path to them

I was a rover, probing happily

oh, to sojourn those corners, seeking truth!

sunset spilled across our

pores, like sweat,

until we lay, stretches of untamed red terrain

your lips, extraterrestrial beings

taught me their language in

short, sweet spurts

finished, fluent, I relayed my findings

your smile communicated

that you concurred

I’m not sure if we can call that

summer successful, once we collected our

samples, we sought reentry,

back to those lives where the

lights didn’t blink

across our weightless bodies like

provoked stars

in my mouth, the feint taste of uncharted rivers,

the air smells of a foreign mixture

somewhere between acceptance and need,

on my skin, I feel yours, this

phantom land

where I once fingered my way

through your lack of gravity and swore

I reached Heaven, as a man