Ganymede

Do you know what happens to lovers? Whirlwinds
force them together, connect their elbows and ankles, their tongues.
They make you push limits, press things.
There's pleasure in pressing, certainly, but
is there any in being pressed? Is there any
in being forced to rise to an occasion?
How far can these things be pushed?
Ask Ganymede if he sighed with love when his shoulders
were in the eagle's claws, if joy passed briefly across his face
before he was borne away-- ask, does rapture mean loving but not choosing?

Because rapture's not just pecking and preening or stroking
the downy scruff of something dear, it's about
coming to blows and losing.
You'll know it when the raptor's upon you,
when you hear the wind split against his wings as he swoops,
and you're leaving the ground.
Until you're taken, you never really understand standing,
there's a reason people talk about being grounded.
It's when you're rising, climbing without looking
down, that you start to wonder about the falling,
about the ceiling on this kind of thing, how much higher you can be pushed.