I  always want you
to know who I am.
When the driving pink days
collapse into anxiety,
& the restless fountain nights
flood the streets
with gray shadows,
there I am, over the keys,
writing to you.
I'm the one who gives you -
across the sea, star to star -
something that you and
you alone can redeem.

You sent me a picture
of buildings wreathed
in Christmas lights,
shaming my city.
Maybe you are right -
& Dublin is the one?
Maybe I will walk there,
under the vacancies
between stars, under
the wounded moon,
under the aching
Christmas lights,
& be at peace.

How I miss you!
The rubber sun
just shines and shines
without you,
mute and meaningless.

It shrugs itself up
into the air,
lights the lawn,
and slowly pillows
down behind the Cairo
& other tall buildings.

Then the moon takes over,
pallid and slow.
It pulls itself into the evening,
inch by inch,
transfixing the dead park,
the silent pavement,
the empty cars.
Until morning breaks
the spell, and the moon
hides away behind
low blue plumes.

How I miss you!
The sun and moon
are no replacement.
They only remind me
of your rhythms,
your chest rising, falling,
the way you put a book down
before sleep takes you.
How I miss you!
You are the center
of things.

I keep my visions
to myself.
You never approved.
The day leaks
onto the tusks of night,
the night tries itself out
onto the street of day.
Visions drift away
into the closer hills.
You never approved.

Things between us
have reached such a low
that I'm drunk at noon
on a Wednesday in October.

But what if I grabbed the sun
for you, shaking it free
from lacy palms of cloud,
and gave it to your greennesss?

Would it be enough to fix it?
Or are all these drams
of Scotch just turning out
dreams in the early afternoon?

The broken symmetries
of the night...
You move,
I move.

You were in the green hill,
chatting with clouds;
I kept a bar open,
wrote you a ditty.

There are little rainings
everywhere tonight.
They slip down into the graves
across the street. It sets the mood.

But I need to get out,
walk the block,
shake this umbilical glass,
join a blind fog.

The moon threatens
to escape its sweater
of noctilucent cloud,
but we're not looking.

"To find a kiss of yours,"
Lorca wrote,
"What would I give?"

The sediment of the sun
isn't enough, stumbling
into cobbled alleys,
getting lost in bookstores.

& the wing of moon
just multiplies into the earth
with gutters of shadow,
forging letters to old lovers.

The tides of the air are fading
on this churlish Sunday,
yet still I haven't found
what I would give for your kiss -

A little hand of silver?
Every third breath?
My best and hidden whisky?
My heart's speakeasy password?
My giant white and silver painting?
A green wing of evening?
This poem?