When you expose your throat to me
A power more than armies grips my pulse.
Risk all, it says. Give all. Take all. Be free.

Long-winged birds cross swiftly between waves far out at sea.
Our steps through heaven go like slow sweet fingerings of drums.
When you expose your throat to me

White candles burning on the altar of your skin pray no mercy.
Obsession dangles from the ropes of leaden bells, high-strung.
Take all, it says. Risk all. Give all. Set free.

A tradesman sloughs a cardboard box that's made asylum by a daughter and her baby.
Men build a fear to freeze all fires beneath their frigid sun.
When you expose your throat to me

Soldiers and hucksters and all such specters from our bedside flee.
We dream commercial cities blessed in iron slumber.
Give all, it says. Take all. Risk all. Be free.

It says not church nor state may deem a person enemy.
If there were such a god as claimed there were no need of love.
When you expose your throat to me
That instant, love is neither bound nor free.

Tom Koontz
The Hopewell Review 1993