for Beth

Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name …

Once when her breasts were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips did more wildly insist …

Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant …

Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed—
this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.

*****

Michael R. Burch writes: “Once” was submitted to The Lyric in 1999, and elicited these comments from editor Jean Mellichamp Milliken: “. . . I actually loved “Once” (better than ‘Twice,’ even), but you need a resolution—it leaves the reader hanging . . . please, please finish it. It’s such a wonderful, fiery, lyrical piece!”
The original poem was intended to leave the reader hanging. There was no resolution at the time it was written. The challenge of writing an ending couplet was intriguing, however, and “Once” was accepted (in its revised form with an ending couplet) and appeared in The Lyric along with “At Once,” “Twice” and “The Leveler.”

Michael R. Burch’s poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 23 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, 86 times by composers.

“Sand Dunes, Socotra Is” by Rod Waddington is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.