The Contours Of Your Shadow

I listened to your heart beat
Its familiar rhythm as you slept,

Your mouth an arc of gentleness.
Soon you will wake

And such moments will surf
To indeterminate dreams,

Forgotten, dispersed.
Yet I, with willing, with thought

Will remember what it felt like
To be there, last night, your heartbeat

Fastened to my ear as I watched
Your breast rise and fall, my face

Following the contours of your shadow
In a moon half-lit in cumuli

As morning dawned, heavy-lidded,
A wealth of pleasure

Pleated into ridiculous heavens
That gleam in a world

Lost to such beauty,
A catalogue of smiles,

A beginning,
As if nothing else mattered.

John Cornwall

If you have any comments on this poem, John Cornwall would be pleased to hear from you.