A thick wasp waits inside on thick plate glass its painted abdomen still drying while just beyond two hummingbirds get violent over the butterfly bush but I only see beauty now even when there’s danger it heightens it somehow I forgot how much this world is alive so thanks for reminding me and everything else–
Deaf from the show collapsing into sleep you are always in my dreams now felt if unseen like a baseline or reverb or the two words I now hear over and over tú sólo tú sólo tú sólo tú
Another night like drowning– sometimes a tide comes up further than expected and lacking air a body cannot perform voluntary efforts to seek attention– I sink into a drink knowing day will rise again from this watery dark– less phoenix, more albatross, but, any port in storm–
Should I speak of you in hushed tones? When I say your name it is citrus-bright– people I don’t know are happy for me. My heart is a grove, orange blossoms at night– giddy in the dark, small, but how we betray ourselves, always reaching out to close a distance, to fill the air with scented prayer, first to make time speed by, second, to linger in your arms, I’ll gladly share the space, if […]
Take this doubt, I’m tired of carrying it– which is not to say that any part of this feels wrong, more that my heart at times gets unhinged as the moth bruising its wings against this glass-paned door– Give me time and coolness and empty evenings, a half-moon, faint stars– I’ll find my way back, again, you know this
These matroyshka days, they don’t progress but nest one within another, like waking dreams or dreams of waking— And just like that it’s morning, again, in this, some city, unlike others, but also mostly the same, a dawn, a limbo, drinking coffee and trying to name things— this is a Thursday, and this is my home.
As if anyone could prize this happiness away! You’d be better off trying to pry away a snake’s fangs– sometimes it seems as if you don’t even know me. I can’t be shamed– this hunger is holy.
1. When we are far apart I carry you around like an ache in my bones– bright as the promise of rain ringing out in the callus of a long-healed fracture. 2. When we are far apart I think of you so often that my other thoughts cast shadows– 3. Also when we’re together.
And then a disembodied morning floating among checkpoints flight conference luggage flight each clock telling me it’s some different time and none quite right and suddenly it seems so apt that lightning only wants to reach the ground it’s unsettled up here interminable and tempting me to strike without warning I’ll call you once I land
Still no rain outside in little Italy tablecloths flapping like loosened sails– another night falls into red glass lamps a subtle storm shy lightning no thunder only distant sirens and a mournful tenor sax– even with all this I am not really here but am air myself a wind a song unable to be in a place without something to hold me there– someone to see someone to hear
OPTIONAL POETRY 