The day we watched lizards
behind glass,
we lost track of time
and incited the ire
of an angry husband
who suspected
ulterior motives;
it was then I knew
how little he knew you.
Collapsed in a heap,
they sought the warmth
of a glass bulb
on their collective mass,
unblinking, unflinching,
quietly growing tails;…
…In a mirrored apartment
that your father bequeathed
to you after his murder
I escaped the world,
skyrise-high
above the East River
and the bleached ribs
of the Whitestone bridge
where seagulls lazily played
in the panoramic blue
outside your picture window.
We savored meals
of dreams and secrets:
hiding in bookstores,
swimming in crystal blue
of chlorinated pools,
wandering Manhattan streets…
The world outside this room is buzzing
with fireflies and summer, and a thousand problems
hover in the heat outside our window.
I’m not listening tonight.
I’m locked in this soap bubble some nebula blew
that somehow sealed around us, mirrored and shifting.
We’re safe here. For now, until the rainbows turn silver,
and time’s up. I hold you, lying still—
not wanting it to burst…
…I want sky and clouds
and the white squint of light,
not this hollow gray night
rent through with a whistle
but the salt truck came again
today
and yesterday too:
my shoes crunch on the crystals
collecting in drifts
and I’m tired of running
past shanties and tracks
on an electrified bridge
trying not to step in the cracks,
and wishing I could just
get back home
to you…
How could I forget a kiss?
I know it’s strange to forget this
when I think of how you entered my life
like a monsoon: a sudden pressure drop
and rainbow macaws streaked across flat gray sky
like the mist auras on spigots
long after it stopped raining —
on that summer day when you picked me
with your nimble white fingers
like sea glass on a beach
that day the subway stopped
due to a sudden accident
when someone tripped on the train tracks
and died instantly of a heart attack…
you warned me of your delicacy,
but I flipped right through your preface
and saw into the moonstone eye
of your heart-story, like aurora
borealis, silvery contrails
of heroically falling dreams
streaking and shifting in blue turns
as they tremble and singe in the atmosphere
of a dense planet, over polar magnitudes
where entire seasons are devoted
to the exclusive practice
of darkness or light—…
it occurs to me
late
(really late)
around that time when internet research decays
from topics of insolvency and fellowships
to tongue splitting, furries and Rasputin’s pickled cock
that I am really, really lonely
for you
and my brain,
radioactive and glowing,
has decided
(after all possible avenues for defilement
that Google and the human race have catalogued)…
mother cat
let me crawl inside your
stealthy quiet
leather urgency
calling to me
from across the
shifting earth
mother cat
let me crawl inside
through this ancient winding
Broadway trail
of tears and remembrance
where cities fade—
grass to rocks
to these cliffs we climb naked
by the sea,
locking waves and moon
in our starlit tongues…
I have just learned
the dark secret
of the sun:
he only seems
to share his warmth
with everyone,
but this charity
is only illusion:
really he is seeking
the elusive moon—…
the sun keeps rising
your voice keeps calling
the sky keeps falling
into the heart of gold…
…I’ve decided to walk today, which is hard for me
but your hand is filled with shadows
that flow into my veins
and soften the weight of sun.
Everywhere around you, shadows cushion me.
I am bathing in the darkness of your light…
I’ve won.
All the fountains are lit up
and all the trials I’ve been tasked with
are done. I’ve traveled the underworld,
cakes in hand; kept my coin
for the ferryman. I wandered in the dark,
cards close to my chest
and when the lost souls cried to me,
they didn’t know my real name.
