The dawn keeps on dawning.
What was it that I thought
I saw? Quickly forget
the taste of lime and salt,
warmth that lingers
like an honest embrace.
Cold rain. The gingko piebald,
a tree at half-mast.
What is love
and what is loveable?
The vacant building
has a gray façade.
A gray car passes
in the slick gray street,
the fallen leaves too damp
to lift. A heavy act,
to turn away, withholding.
Mark the weight of empty
space. Of words unspoken.
That bitter root of doubt.
Election night, and sick
as a dog. Something
I ate. Easy to tell
when a thing has gone
rancid, but hard
to tell when it hides
what it is.
Take the medicine,
stay hydrated,
wake up to see
what’s become
of the world,
if it has returned
to what was great,
for some, who could
afford it, and looked
just right. And then
those dumb appetizers,
shit on a platter,
too seasoned with hate,
too stuffed with anger,
to know that they’re being
served up. Croquettes
for the new Emperor.
Or Rey, or Führer.
And old Moctezuma,
still getting
his revenge–
Lost in some forest north
of the city, the driver
returns the wedding
guests home, some
somewhat drunk, a song
rises up, hoarse, flamenco–
staccato clapping,
the rutted road,
headlights bathing
the night fog in gold.
There is no place to be
now, the wedding guests
are returning home,
with newly-softened gazes,
reminded again of love,
the road turning in on itself,
laughter, fake despair.
The wedding over,
the driver drives
the wedding guests
somewhere, anywhere,
it doesn’t matter.
Sad and joyful,
a song rises up–
it sings to me,
my love, I love
Querétaro state
by bus, a ripe
sunset, pastel
trucks, corn fields
and sun-bleached rocks.
No country has the exact
same color of dust.
This is already
a new life, new eyes.
The old highway
winds through high
desert, fat-paddled
cacti, unknown birds,
a dark cloud to the North
feathering out, the night,
halcón, the wistful sky,
lindo, listo,
ready to take flight
torrents of rain
the hour before departure
jewel-tone leaves
against a wash of gray
the sky gives no hint
of time or day
leaving
I am already a little
gone already
the cobalt jay
catches my eye
a promise of color
color y calor
After a fall
the margins of a bruise,
lilac, ugliness
is only contextual.
How quickly a state
changes, at full speed
and then fallen, been
befelled, complanate,
decumbent, laughing
at the slick night,
no pain, yet, just awareness,
again, of sublimation–
run, ran, running–
of location
relative to the hard
dark plane of sky.
If you had stayed until after
dawn you would have seen
the strangest sky, all white,
fog roiling like smoke,
dampness obscuring
the sun yet compounding it,
blindingly diffuse.
How could the words
come as a surprise?
But loss cannot be
anticipated
entirely, yesterday
was one side and this
is the other. One less.
It comes in threes
and here’s the third,
bad news couched
in benign words,
no, pareidolia–
man in the moon, Jesus
in a breadloaf,
such a hunger
for finding something,
anything, even terror.
You asked what you should say.
Nearby is the country
they call life
you will know it
by its seriousness.
Rilke. I don’t know,
nor do I want to, really.
Give me your hand.
The day’s calvacade,
a clatter of hours–
this life could use
more sotto, more legato.
A thing is more striking
given the proper setting:
Consider a spotlight
in its wealth of darkness.
The weight of a caesura.
Excursive silence.
The night before
a departure,
waiting
for that balm of
Not Here.
It’s supposed to
come in threes,
but between worse,
and worst–
I mean, I can’t
even tell
if this food
has gone bad–
implications are tiring.
I’m going
to the ocean,
to take in the water’s
endless rehearsal
and the steady,
steady shore,
to live
in the littoral–
there’s not one thing
that isn’t somehow in motion,
just I wish they
sometimes weren’t
OPTIONAL POETRY 