Generosity
–Todd Davis
The sun hits the ice-coated snow at 186,282 miles per second,
then slides across the greased surface of the earth.

I woke our sons this morning with the smell of bacon
spitting in an iron skillet.

An hour earlier, the smell of your sex stirred me,
and we held each other in dim light

as a garbage truck rumbled through the neighborhood.
I crack eggs in the brown the bacon bequeaths,

whisk them until the yellow and white congeal.
This time of year I have to squint to make out the heads

of laurel leaves as they strain their necks
to stay above the snowline. With so much radiance

it’s hard to hide my love for the pleasures of the earth.
When I was ten, a maple tree, split at its crotch by lightning,

went sap, freezing and thawing in an amber slick.
Night turned over in an unmade bed, and I licked

the sweet until my tongue was raw. What compares
to a cheek on the breast, a hand gently cradling

a lover’s bottom? Near the middle of the river
frazil ice swirls and bucks, kicking water into the air

where it freezes. You love dark chocolate and sea salt,
anything that melts with the body’s temperature.

I love building a fire in the snow, watching the russet
soil appear beneath the kettle as it begins to boil.

Photo by Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash