Note to an Absent Poet

for N.

You appear and disappear
in my life like Christmas cards delivered
in April or August, late
or early, off

their intended mark in any case.
I can say I don't miss you but, God, I do--
your cut abs, cut cheekbones,
the risen body of your loins.
Even if I don't take you in

I want to hold your fury,
your youth, your maleness, not
in comparison to my own

and not to despise my wife, but

I want to enter and be entered,
to kiss and be kissed,
to touch both those gentle and those firm,
both sides of creation, as both are holy
in the church of the human.
I want to be able to love also you,

in a manner as ordinary as handwriting.