April 22 : Beyond Having by Ray Gonzalez

I'm infatuated with Ray Gonzalez' work. It's great, just great.

And, always, there is desire like
the orange and banana changing
texture on the kitchen shelf.
Their skins sink slowly into themselves.
There is the liquid of lust and thirst,
an open gloss of choice and cutting,
a lying down toward the wind,
the heaving you were warned about.

And, soon, there is love like
miniature spellings embedded in the shoulder,
waiting to be misspelled, washed,
brought back by perception that fades
with what moves below the arm,
hinging on a doubt cried away.
There is the mistake of giving name
to the prune, the print bitten off
and covered over by black hair--
its numbers kept secret,
long strands in the tale of the carpet,
the pomegranate, the hundred ways
of staying there.

And, besides, there is danger of riding desire
until it carves you into its swollen throat,
steel-cry of possession and the infinite blessing
of fingers missing from the first time,
fingernails tracing the shape of the strawberry
to memorize roughness without leaving.
There is the flavor and the understanding,
a place to rest the eye after traveling,
a force that binds you together
without you knowing red marks
on your back are places where wings
would have risen if you were an angel.