Today I walked wet streets
strangely sheeted with pennies,

as slant light burnished coil after coil
of hair outside red-***** Macy's,

& the wind pulled open the liquor
doors in the middle of the block.

I missed her as I crossed the blank
green language of grass,

I missed her as I slipped through iron
railings into rain's only face,

I missed her as I hailed the bus on E st
& drifted into a shining glitch.

I lipped a Gauloises and observed
the body of smoke being born.

Then, just before this poem ended,
night appeared in my pocket,

next to the leather and the money,
& it was so hungry, so lonely.

I sheathed the sharpness of my eyes
in pity, and missed her all the more.

Little magpie,
don't leave bed -
stay the day instead.
I have coffee, bread -
we'll be fed -
but that thigh
must elude this eye
or I lose the thread.
Did I hear you sigh?
Little magpie,
don't leave bed.

they sit in empty chairs and speak kettle-whistle,
wishing us well.

You know me by now...
I catch you
with messy hair
under the new face
of night, smiling
miles into the workings
of my eyes,
& I'm all undone.

You're lip smoking
as we walk canal south,
the whited angles
of swan wings
tenting the water
beside your laughter.

You know me by now...
your fleet kiss is blown
across a blue broadness
that could never stop it,
never,
          never.

You know me
almost accidentally.
But when the night blows out
& the little secret garden
is filled with small rain,
it's your eyes I want
looking for me.

White tongue of ginger,
black tongue of coffee,
& morning limps in
at 6 a.m., hiding between
the pages of blue books.
I'm under a memorial,
across five meridians,
fifty-five hundred kilometers.
My hands hope to drift
under the knit peach,
& I love you with both lips.
White tongue of lemon,
black tongue of cardamom.

It fell below
freezing today.
They say it might snow.

My morning is slow,
I saw sun's only ray
as it fell below

the black blow
of cloud's spray;
it might snow,

a flaking flow
gray on gray,
bringing me low,

as though
it knows you're away.
They say it might snow

like crumbles of dough
dropping my way;
sinking, falling below; 
it might snow.