Ishtar

I have felt your threaded fingers grasp my tongue
My body circling slowly in the scarlet silk of your hands
I press into your palm,
a ravenous supplicant
Unraveling slowly against your skin
the splay of my hair coils and uncoils
I cry out a need for release, your name

Take me, Ishtar
Flay against my skin the red and black rose of your lips
I have known no deeper hunger
than when I am in your embrace

You anger is weighted with the lust of
a thousand stars
You admonish my needs-
I have given you warriors
you cry out
Wielders of power, men and women,
wells of the deep,
and you have only played with trinkets

I am swallowed against the waves of your insistence,
the penetrating grope of your fingertips as you lay me bare
inside the cup of your palms,
your breath steals shivers across my dampened skin

Or is it fear that prickles this flesh? or the weight of knowledge
hovering atop my bones?
Knowing that in the vast array of experience,
in the entirety of dancing dreams,
I chose a mere corner of the galaxy in which to breathe

You must hunger for me
as you do for release
you whisper
You must yearn for your life, for your dreams, for love,
the way you grasp desperately to come

I am upon my knees,
rainwater collecting about me,
soaking, washing, arousing
Rivulets of promise against my body
A rosebud in the vastness of your palms

You must open yourself wider,
accept deeper,
tremble harder
 You will know me when you let yourself truly hunger
 I will be on the other side

I open my mouth
and your fingers release my tongue,
limbs shuddering against the loss of you
The scarlet silk of your embrace
a memory
I am throbbing, and silent