I watch you spark up. A small frown grows deep, then disappears when you inhale. Whole moments pass, and you hold that new smoke in your lungs. You are shuttered, you are gone. I like that you return to me first. Even before your eyes are fully open you find me; warm and backlit through lids, a ghost through dark lashes.  

You reach for me, run a finger under my vest strap. I like that you switch the cigarette to your left hand and don’t seem to notice. The ember-glow dances and sways. Smoke spills up in a silver ribbon when you exhale.

We built a little night
but you emptied it.

Your Dublin beachhead
is all undertow.

Dead menus blow from
one gutter to the next.

Westward parks
fill with fever.

A gibbeted sun
hangs ignored.

O darling...
I'm not this way,

I'm not this way -
remember what I am.

Stay in
late on Sunday,
when sleeves of keening rain
drape downcast hollies by the street.
Come here...

There's no more romance
in this February world,
but we can still miss each other
and say little love yous.
Night will still drop on us,
it will still flake away from us,
& I will still curse the distance
from my low, black chair.
I may only be your halfway darling,
but I'll gift you lakes of kisses
until the screen goes dark
& the evening covers my name.
The moon is so still,
like a removed lung.

I’m in filthy jeans and vest, muddy boots tucked under a bar stool. I'm sun-sore across my shoulders and neck, with dirt-dust clung to me, all over. My hair’s graded real short because men like it long, and I’m so done with them. I wonder briefly, through this haze of hormones and *****, if maybe there's a woman for me. I’ve stayed too late. Workwear’s gone home, showered, got changed. I’m alone. I’m the wrecked remains of Monday-through-Friday in this sparkling sea. I ache. I really ache. I should leave, but you buy me one more drink and I stay.

The rain plows leftover vapor
off the street, and into
the fawned sugar yard;
it's almost spring, and your birthday
is around every corner.
For me, nothing can dull it,
not even this smother of sun
screaming into the blanket,
or chilly gods that straddle
the graves of the air -
winter holdovers.
We are paused.
This gives me down
a jag of ****** noses,
& stain to salt my eye...
but I still adore your new nails
that pop scarlet,
your cloud of hair,
your count-coffee thoughts.
I hope you don't mind
that I can't always speak
without this heart-warble,
& that New York
doesn't wait for us,
not this year.