A Perilous Liaison

[tectak]

An African and European knelt I have an immediate problem with this ,pete. You are using contra-general terms. Playing Devil's advocate I could argue that an African could be a European. Perhaps a little tighter definition is needed to set up the opener, which is the quintessence of whatever you are intending doing next
beneath the same cross.
Over shared missal, they were"Over" has a quantitive element which is a bit distracting. Strictly, nothing wrong here though I would like to think they were "holding" or "clutching" the Missal, rather than hovering over its pages. Your poem!
close enough to smell the sweetness
on each other’s breath.
They talked shyly initially,
giggling unnecessarily,Full stop here. You have an excellent sentence. It is complete unto itself. If you go for a semi-colon the next few lines get complicated. I am not good enough to sort the punctuation out without reading out loud. Hang on.....Yep. Full stop gets my vote, then a semi-colon after "inanities". Either way this is a nicely observed cameo and is well worded. Just a hint of cliche with joy-filled but,hell, if no one uses cliches anymore they would become dead as a Do-Do
she, unraveling metropolitan inanities,
he, extolling the beauty of untamed wildernesses.
They came, breathless, into each other’s
lives and joy-filled reveries.

Shared moments fizzed by, not one seeming momentary.I would drop "shared". you have used it already and we get the picture. The rest is heavily reliant upon "fizzed", which works, but then goes flat with the clunking "not one seeming momentary". It us counter-intuitive to the main point of the sentence, that time was effervescing into increasing homogenity, if that's a word.
Their liaison, despite its perils, cradled them into bliss
and consumed Christmas to crucifixion in the time it took to kiss. This last sentence is convoluted BUT it works. Yes to this but no full-stop after "chutzpah" (typo?)
Crossing cultures with bravura,
mixing colours with chutzpah.
and with beguiling attention to each other,
they spanned generations with viaducts
cemented in trust.

They stood, unblinking through storms of bitterness,
siphoning the intensity of those racist tempests
toward the blazing existence they shared.
Fearlessly shouldering burdens and cares into
a blackness, whitened by passion's flare. Why does this stanza seem so familiar? Is it because it is dangerously flirting with cliches again? I just feel that this whole stanza needs bleaching. Cleaning. Hyperbole needs reducing. Its a bit StarTrek-ish.

But from the flame that lit their route
crackled pernicious, unholy sparks
of condemnation, spat from bloodline mouths.
Viaducts crumbled as truth flaked to dustWhy viaducts? I know you wanted to say "bridges" but worried about the cliche call. It is good as it is......but why viaducts?
Neither bravura nor chutzpahToo much with the chutzpah already.
can restore the lust of spring-time.
Both aware of love gone amiss,
they bought each other missals
to avoid the pungency of halitosis. Pete, this is an opinion. Terrible end-line. I don't know what got into you. For me, a very gratuitous ending. Sorry. Made worse because the whole thing is so good. I know what you were aiming for...but I think you missed at the last shot.
Best,
tectak