BY: Despy Boutris

I love you big-time long-time
all the time I love your mouth
I love the wind of your breath
your eyes your scars the long
parabola of your neck and shoulder
the length of your body the backs
of your fingers brushing
against thighs I love your hands
your earlobes the snow
of your inner thigh I love the scent
of you the taste of you the burn
of your lips I love the scald
of your skin the angle of your jaw
the sweet heat of the bend
of your knee I love you neck
to navel curl to curl I love
your thumbs I love your bedhead
I love your leonine half-wild hair
chestnut curls I love your calves
your crooked smile your hollow
of throat I love you hard-hipped
warm wet rough I love you
split-lipped lead-lidded barebellied
I love your breath I love you cell
by cell I love your arching hips
I love you I love you much I love
you more.

Despy Boutris is published or forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, The Adroit Journal, Prairie Schooner, Palette Poetry, Third Coast, Raleigh Review, and elsewhere. Currently, she teaches at the University of Houston and serves as Assistant Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast.