I’m gonna love you like 
nobody’s loved you 
with the rain flickering 
against my parted window
and the sheets pooled 
around my hips was when 
I felt the first note 
at the bottom of my stomach
that suggested it wasn’t 
the bottom and there was more 
mystery to fall through
than I could imagine 
perhaps less the bottom 
of my stomach than 
the precipice of my stomach
and my first thought was 
to reach for your wrist.

It occurred to me after
the party that things like 
walking out of a party 
with someone you just met 
holding hands along a moonlight 
river was an inaccessible romance 
vignetted by searchlights 
chased by people 
I didn’t understand
with no hope of 
participating in desire
until Billie Holiday 
sang that note.

Everything I have is yours
you’re a part of me
what is it about her 
voice that cleaves 
the octave like an ocean?
my destiny so ardently split?
I think I understand
how you “love 
music” without interrogation
as to genre or poetics
or school of thought
just the experience 
of living from note to note
each breath lasting only as long 
as it sustains the next.