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Poetry by Kevin Corcoran

Love and Espionage Let's not say those things we aren't saying. We are, after all, men spies and women spies never revealing our true selves locked in the ancient mortal struggle of everything. Our layers of espionage textured and opalescent. Each lie perfect and beautiful. Our eyes meet and I can see this is no game. Tumbling with you in climactic finale we wrestle and tear trying to deliver to each other the tiniest imaginable sealed envelopes which we have guarded inside ourselves filled with the inscrutable squiggles of our secret codes.

Voluptuous God, I'm in love with your voluptuous mind Full of curves and spaces and sensuous places Everything a delight, an exploration Thoughts and ideas spread about you in luxury You wear your books like cleavage; Your curiosity like lust I want your jokes like I want your mouth I want your music like I want your sex I think of you and am left groping, curling in ecstasy

Yes Yes, I speak cunnilingus I know each exquisite dialect, each special inflection Would you like to hear? It sounds like rain falling in your dark green ocean and some inexorable yes gswelling inside you

Digging Who is she under all of that? Under herself, under her ground? Show me her still water springs ggher quiet-rising source of patient beauty ggstone clear, hidden, and gentle Show me her archaeological relics gghe shards and wrappings of her childhood ggand precious metal vessels of adult ritual Show me her faults and fissures ggher quakes of rage and tremors of uncertainty ggnaked edges approaching the climax of shift And show me, please, her volcanic core ggher deliberate churning of intensity and heat gga building, molten pressure flaring into white

Gravity Now I feel it ñ the pull of your precious gravity A slow, delicious turning my hand about to touch your skin my mouth imagining your mouth Draw me in ñ I want all your playfulness, your gentleness, your laughter

Cave Painting You are the cave painting in my heart Your colours dance in my fire-bright primitive darkness Your voice sings of magic and ecstasy Your touch wakes all the roaring, burning life inside of me Your heart hands in my sky like the moon while my heart, crouching by the fire, whoops with love for your mysteries

I saw my father cry for the first time He had pulled back my mother's hospital gown unveiling for us her terrible swelling a huge side tightness purple watermelon variegated the colour of morbid fear. She lay awkward folded on her stretcher shaking, pained, drugged, frightened, nurses prepping her for the operating room. We each said good-bye and moved into the hall I'd always doubted my father and mother loved each other. They never said it, rarely kissed, slept in separate beds ñ I was mad about this He'd fall asleep watching his TV, she'd fall asleep watching hers. My father left the room last.v I watched him through the doorway. He wiped his eyes with a napkin and moved towards her, his lips beginning to shake and pull. He disappeared beyond the doorway's edge but in his quick breaths and quiet sobs I could hear the radio play of his tears. Her voice was small: I'm coming back I'm coming back but he sobbed and sobbed. I felt stupid for my petty grudge. They weren't automatic like government or weather they were mortals like anyone else saw each other as their best chance for happiness surrendered their lives for family and love We are all innocent. We are all forgiven. Everyone tries their best.

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