on second thought

on second thought

you give to me

you here with me

while i gaze into my phone

connected to people

i do not know or others

who are not here with me

these things more important

than you here with me

close enough to smell

to touch looking into your eyes

on second thought...

a short poem about a hollow object

a short poem about a hollow object

he created something wonderful

maybe even beautiful

he held it up to the light in one palm

tapping it with the other hand

to find that it was empty

hollow

he turned to share it with someone

(the only one)

but no one was there

so he named it: My Heart

and then spent his days debating himself

whether it was Aristotelian or Platonic

52 (hurtling)

52 (hurtling)

i do not know

how to turn 52

it is something

i have never done before

it is not like any other

year of this inevitable gravity

and growing older has become

a crumbling and a hurtling like orbiting

reminding me of science fiction films

the soft roaring of space ships and planets

this thing happening to me against me over me

until i become a drifting consequence of being overwhelmed

•

this other side of over

this rain of you gone

has washed away all

the color leaving gray

and black and white

like a decaying silent film

•

i come to where you are

and even though you asked

me without asking me not to

you are not angry or surprised

i appear asking you to read to me

something you think wonderful

i expect Franny and Zooey

or Vonnegut or Carl Rogers

or something i could not guess

i lay my head in your lap

and then you read this poem

over the rush of planetary hurtling

“i do not know how to turn 52”

i say when you finish

“it is something

i have never done before”

i reach for your ankle

taking it in my hand

holding on this time

hurtling and crumbling

slip from my mind

and suddenly

“i do not know how to turn 52

without you”

i confess

“i know i know”

resting your warm palm

on my bare head

you say in a voice

like a hurtling space ship

and the colors of the rainbow

“that’s why i read you this poem”

prayer (inhale)

prayer (inhale)

i have begun to pray

which seems a silly thing

in the godless rubble of my life

and these are my prayers in hell

i turn on all the lights

and keep my eyes wide open

without blinking or looking away

and i say

tell me you love me

to watch your mouth and throat

i turn off all the lights

and rest my finger tips on your lips

closing my eyes as tight as possible

and i say

tell me you love me

to feel those words form right there

i ask you to lie on the bed

and i slip off your shirt and bra

to rest my ear against your bare chest

and i say

tell me you love me

to press against that single vibration

•

and then i ask you to die your hair red

something stark and unnatural

not to hide or avoid your natural blonde

or the gray you will become

who you are and who you have been

and who you will be i love

not for me to make a list of all

the things you owe me

but for me to make a list of all

the things i owe you

•

everything i whisper

over and over

everything

it becomes the sound my lungs make

every time i inhale

unable (the day rose)

unable (the day rose)

“He spreads wide my right eye with his fingers and pushes the knife into my eyeball….He does the same with my left eye….‘But as long as you bear this sign, you must beware of light.’”

The Gatekeeper and the Dreamreader in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami

“So as not to see you see me react”

“Parting Gift,” Fiona Apple

the day rose

with sunshine so bright

no one could open their eyes

we raised our arms

against the blinding glare

of this new shocking day

forced as we were underground

to nighttime lives like vampires

feasting on dreams dark as blood

•

none of this happened of course

but came it did to me in a vision

just before i read the scene

of the Gatekeeper blinding

the Dreamreader taking daylight

from him and giving him dreams

•

this is not about suddenly too-bright sunshine

or visions anticipating a novel not yet read

this is not allegory or fantasy or science fiction

where readers of dreams are rendered blind

this is about me no longer able to see you see me

leaving me unable to look myself in the eyes

Anomaly (imagined child)

Anomaly (imagined child)

Anomaly as his imagined child

allowed Tarame hours sitting in the sun

watching and listening to the ceaseless tide

contemplating this young woman of him

and all that was female for him in this world

as he faced his life completely solitary.

Tarame knew he had accomplished

one real and clear thing in his half century—

failing women who had claimed his heart,

but what was a man to do with failure

and a heart gripped tight by squandered love lost

while the ocean sang and the sun always shined?

•

Alone Tarame could imagine a daughter

unlike him and unlike anyone else,

but he could not even fathom a lover,

his soulmate sitting there beside him.

In the space of his imagination was nothing

except the hollowness he knew as longing

and the animated voice and laughter

he believed rose from Anomaly’s throat.

what does a curve weigh?

what does a curve weigh?

i wake up on the edge of the bed

my back turned to you beside me

i ease my foot under the covers

toward you until my sole touches

the curve of your calf sleeping

smooth and warm pressing there

•

what does a curve weigh?

the curve of your shoulder to neck

the curves of you my Achilles heel

•

i wake up on the edge of the bed

my back turned to you not there

the curve of the earth beneath me

and somewhere else beneath you

no sole pressed against your calf

smooth and warm in my memory

•

what does a curve weigh?

when you are not there curve to curve

more than anything i’ve ever carried