A Pilot's Pay

My love,  who rides the black flanks of the night
     on steel wings,
My love,  whose sex is an inkwell,  whose eyes are caged birds,
My love,  who yawns above cities feathered with soot,
     and over jungles deadly as an arsenal,
My love,  whose laugh is a peony walking a tightrope,
My love,  who spins a radar net across the sky,
My love,  whose hands are the fringed undulation of a hawk
     tilting calmly where only predators float,
My love,  who sharpens the day on the carborundum
     of his fear,
My love,  whose palms are roadmaps,  whose lips are a dragonfly,
My love,  who slays the wolves of inertia,
My love,  who counts the loose sequins of city lights,
     and the spiralling galaxies high above,  on the same abacus,
My love,  who gallops through time and thunder,
     while clouds spill over him bags of light,
My love,  who meets his enemies in sleeves of armor,
My love,  whose love is a ladder of fish hooks,
My love,  who finds me a wild,  iridescent thing of the earth,
My love,  who spreads open the loose skirts of the rain
     so a wing may pass,
My love,  whose feet are two panting ravens,
My love,  who navigates by satellite and silo,
My love,  who loves through Civil Evening Twilight,
My love,  who lives by gasoline and starlight.                       

                                 Diane Ackerman, Jaguar  of  Sweet Laughter,  Random House, 1991