Dear J----,

How many suns died,
out in the black margins
& burning headrooms
since we last shared
any words of importance?
I look out tonight from the roof
towards the endless upper branch
& swear a few have blinked away.

You strolled in so casually
from my dream, as if from the wood
or park, and common strokes
moved in the air between us.
Your words fork across
all your grassy miles,
as you tell me about the fox-scream;
I can almost see the starlings
hash across miniature cubes of lawn.

I live in silver -
the cars that flicker right to left,
the metro's metallic hide,
the strange inflorescent cloud
that garottes the coinish moon.
I'll lend it you on afternoons
when the rain deposits itself
in quiet blue discs across the city.

Go now, and know
that I am always grateful
for another friend, especially
when they understand
how hard a heart heaves
across all the bent years.

Yours,
Evan

A gaunt green so full of song:
a lark bunting nests in the holly,

under a marmalade chariot
with Catherine-wheels:

I mean both senses of the word.
Self-lashes leave stripes thin as days.

O, how I move my hands for you,
from pen to wrack, choking away

the sobs, sometimes, because
your city is far from this city;

but other times I run my thumb
across your kitchen scrawl,

across your glassed-in face,
across the things you touched

when the dream was living.
The gaunt blue princess

holly quavers beyond
the trellised net, thronged

with twig now: a little bird
caches its frail life away

from a cat o' nine tails sun
that is whipping & whipping.

It's another late night
when rain strokes the yard

into gore-blue slate strakes.
Beyond the almond-thin window

a car hurtles into a red away
at the same time

as your face pushes
through the plum-colored

angelfish orchids
right to my blanket eye

as I wake from a dream
about snow in Dublin.

A moon bathes in Judas rain,
in dense yellow shadow;

although I am so alone -
I have never been so alone -

I feel your presence
in this strange convergence

of a flower's face, and
the memory of motherless snow.

I walked out last night,
barley-headed,
soul burnt down to a stub,
into a black chassis
fenced with star -
my hairy-eyed heart
carried on so.
But I am thankful for you,
my friend,
who so easily righted my keel
back into the tide
with a graceful turn.

Your words sift the holly,
brace the moon,
they are petrichor
in the lavender fields.
They come across the sea,
I eat them like pastilles.
I refresh the screen in hopes
that they have spiced the page.

The way I imagine you now,
in this moment,
you are running,
lifting the beach fleetly,
trailing a supping sun -
go, then, and know that the world
is so much better for you.

I grow older,
my body fails,
it's just what you'd expect:
corrupted voyage,
blossoms turn away as they fall.  
I become convinced
we are unusually alert animals,
drifting in a soft chaos.
I fill my spaces with alcohol,
& with her.
The sun marches away,
saffron step,
& the day is throated.
I just hope that my love
doesn't come too late.
Or if it does,
that I can be wiped away
easily enough.