Snow Leopard

My paws crack the icy crags,

Ascending along asymmetric stones

To cold canyons and cliffs

Where your scent warms my blood.

I tip-toe with tension and torrid

Senses, beyond your little ears—

Those rounded echoes of unawares,

Like the sun-fired plains I've not known.

You are magnificent to my low stature,

My stare embeds in the trace of your lines

And ages as untouched glass,

As my breath burns the night.

I hunt the ibex, through twilight

On the higher spires of Bhutan,

Though I crave not their flesh,

Nor sustenance for my flex.

I pass my narrow moments,

Forgetting my own footprints

While I trek alone,

Contemplating the flavors of your skin.

My mind is a winter azul with

Mantle-centered flame,

And my days, not perplexed

By trivialities of survival.

I want your cheeks,

Their uprisings and plateaus,

The black-rock lava

Of your onyx eyes.

I creep under the moon,

Desiring blankets of blind fragrance,

Swaying and catching,

With furious feel of the frosted soil.

And I carve each step down

In soft silent stealth,

Through dark furrows and hills,

Toward the drum of your pulse.