some daily language

When we sweep without

one of those dust mop brooms,
a vague moving cloud following us
into all the rooms,

I choke and hang the inside
collar of my t-shirt over
the bridge of my nose,
suddenly breathe again within
the distinct smell of those
salts from my own sweat
sweet skin. I can lie

on a clean blue sheet
and I will partly lie
against the sensual worlds
longing of underneath. There's nothing
perfect about us

there, a lanky
bone and skin man with dust
in his hair, the desire underneath
a wood and bristle push-broom
left in his hands for a place neither
taken in except where there are limbs and kissing and
nor always then.

These rooms never sweep
clean

from the dust and dust and dust kicked up.
But we hold our breath and all
the dirt that past generations we're sure must have
stomped off here like sins from where
they were, for a while

can be, despite
our dust cloud
doubt,
less for us.
I will go on sweeping

and sweeping without.