Ecstasy and Dust

by Peter Mladinic

1

I live with windows, doors, animals, trees,

the memory of ecstasy, certainty of dust.

Dust is dust. Ecstasy, the body’s soul,

the body erotic, not thought but lived

Sensual, sexual, not spoken but lived.

Felt, kindled, that beautiful like no other,

beauty not a thought, a moment seeing,

feeling were one where she stood naked.

Beautiful the last word on my lips.

I was all, seeing and feeling fully alive.

The memory lust-charged, full of lust,

love is the last word, the first two, her kiss.

The kiss of her mouth on mine, her body.

This poem is more mind than body,

the mind’s being, the certainty of dust

non being, coupled with being wholly—

Seeing hearing tasting smelling touching

of me with her in dim light behind a door.

Today, I don’t know if she’s still living,

if so, if she recalls our two bodies as one.

Perfect harmony, all motion set against

the stasis also perfect, the dust stillness

of the grave. Graveyards are for the living,

to be in, remember, mourn. I celebrate

the erotic realm of two in lust, she and I.

2

I remember a floor, the nearness of a dance

her name, a wall, the fierceness of her kiss,

the ferocity. Her mouth her body my mouth

my body were one grinding like a piston

in out up down back forth all in one flash

she and I, my back to the wall, the dim hall

outside her door. Erotic evenings behind

her door blend this morning into one night

one moment in the span of a lifetime.

I remember the sheen of her blonde hair.

Her tight shorts accented her rump’s heft

her hip’s curves, her hourglass womanly,

The shorts around her ankles, her body’s

motion as she stepped out of them,

the dark mound between her white thighs.

Her body, a girl’s except curvaceous hips

and full mound, said I am your woman

and you, my man. Am in contrast to am not,

the hesitant fumble of our being together

in contrast to certainty of non being.

We were there, unzipping. Those shorts

she stepped out of, a pink flower pattern,

I wonder if they still exist somewhere.

Easy to remember her unzipping them,

impossible to know non existence.

3

Stevens the poet lived in Connecticut.

I recall two lines from Stevens: Death is

the mother of beauty, and the body dies,

the body’s beauty lives. What he felt,

wrote, and left for us to contemplate.

Life is and isn’t the opposite of death,

the terrible finality of non being, non is.

As death is the certainty of dust, life is

doubt, hesitant, a fumbling going forward.

She and I went in the erotic realm,

took off our clothes in the ecstasy

of fumbling, night’s heat filled with doubt

the maybes the mistakes, imperfections.

The oppose of death: our lust, her breath

and mine, her imperfect body and mine

in lust’s boudoir going feverishly forward.

All the while “maybe” looming over us.

Our imperfect lust in the ceiling, the lamp

light, only, we were great together.

Her body’s kiss on mine like no other.

I wonder if she’s still living, if somewhere

the lamp exists, the shorts she stepped

out of, the rug, the door she opened

when I walked in, when I walked out locked,

to be safe from whatever was out there.

4

When you think about it, a lot of stuff

out there, but we can’t predict the future.

Doubt, like regret is part of life, so is love

and remembering and lust, and wondering

how we got here, came into being.

She and I never talked about what we did,

our seeing hearing touching tasting.

The stumble by chance into erotica

perfectly imperfect, accidental, unplanned.

We were for each other magnets,

against a wall two bodies, one kiss,

in our ferocity like a piston up and down.

Her eyes small, nose slightly bulbous,

mouth small in a face nothing much

to look at, that dims in time. But her kiss

lingers, her womanly body lingers.

Was she the one? Yes, of that I’m certain.

Of our lust, certain in my hesitant going

forward. I’m certain we were in lust

better than good, and dust’s certainty.

Happy to be, I’m ecstatic we were, she

And I. I’m ecstatic to know I have a dental

Appointment I may or may not keep.

I remember the mound between her thighs,

her womanhood, her two-syllable name.

About Peter Mladinic

Peter Mladinic’s fifth book of poems, Voices from the Past, is due out in November 2023 from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, USA.