how naked the heart
when anointed for communion
transparent as skeleton leaf
veins quaking sepia-tinged curiosity
flexed impulse relaxing between Whys and Whats and Who Do Yous
where it embraces all and becomes tethered by the long gaze,
unwavering and tender
held there, ambient love soaks through gossamer-laced capillaries
and this aesthete,
quickening with meaty delight,
is transmuted into a vaporous contagion
oxgenated, metabolized,
pumped outward then upward,
to be inhaled anew
now sipped in and seeping
stripping bare the armor
to the raw once more
infecting it with the blood wet
murmuring of the proud and unafraid
tscottmiller 