After awhile
we learn to take love
 into our own hands, don’t we?
Sooner or later we cease
foisting the responsibility for our fulfillment
onto another.
Having been fooled time and again
 by the fickleness of lust,
the passing of passion, the fears of each others failures,
we return to the reliable and uncomplicated
solitary satisfaction; the knowing that we are forever really alone.
And that there are secrets that only our aloneness can hold.
Love is always,
and forever filled with complexity,
constantly changing gowns and masks
and demanding a transformation from us.
Love alternates between whisper and scream,
Come up higher .
 And we release each other from the
 impossible bondage of expectation.
What is as familiar or as safe as our own fingers?
What else can contain the spilling of stars
from our personal galaxy...without risk?
Nothing quite like our own soft palm.