EROS

For those of us who still believe love is holy.

by V.B. Price

Irresistibly
everywhere, fragrant,

nude of doubt, joy soaked, so
like water moving up

through tree flesh
helplessly into air, Eros

draws his hand
to her waist,

his fingers lifting, sliding
under the edge

of her shirt
as they sit,

backs to the world,
at a center table.

Sensing no pain
in the dark edges

of their lives. So like
Psyche’s light, voluptuous,

magnetized by fact, the lovers
cannot help but reveal

what wants to stay
under the covers. The sexual place

that never sleeps
is mind, after all,

feeling around in the dark
for love. And so

we see every time
that Eros is not

good looks, not
banal sightings

of faultless form,
but Chaos born,

warm blooded,
unformed without

the loving other.
It’s not so odd

Eros is a putti baby
in comic book cosmologies,

not a strange translation
for the purity

of attraction
that can’t be made impure,

though, Thanatos,
that drain of want,

that irresistible lack,
shadows close enough to be

mistaken for a stain.
Eros alone

is free of ending,
Moon pulled,

tide gorged, indiscriminately
full of purpose,

how could Eros not
be the god

of the petal skin of babies,
and of bodies who when touch

whisper “baby” in your ear?
Numinous, beyond

choice, the eternal yes
that’s never out of place,

Eros is so
much of everything

we all want
all the time

that even death
wants to die

like noble
lovers who just

can’t stop
for the life of them.