Well, here I am, without her -
in this new dark space
where I'm slowly breathing.
I pour another drink in the dark -

a few tremulous stars
encrust the subfusc city mantle,
& a bus growls off
down a flat hallway of road.

The floor is paved with books -
the cat sleeps under a half-moon
that's curled like a rotted aloe leaf.
How are things in Dublin, I wonder?

The night pools in the air,
above the sighing branch.
The kitchen is smaller here.
Grief leaks into the tight hours.

I see a bathroom light snap on
across the street. Birds clap across
the row. A car races down the rack,
& one more minute stutters away.

The air is cotton-tangle thick and
thoughts are heavy.

I unpick a hem of memory -

The quiet pip-pip of a broken stitch
gives way to raw.

The mulberry tree is night-ripe,
its fruit fermenting almost before dripping
down the branch to the gray-saddled sidewalk,
where birds refuse it; the sharpened tang
slips and spreads into the green closeness.
Char-wings spread out above me,
interrupted by static bursts of cloud
that stream from a southern vagueness;
the waxed crescent moon-blossom
spits a little of its milkish shine
towards me in the black heat.
The lance-lights of the streetlamps
snap on, lidless and yellowed,
venting that yellow down
into the wet cut yards.
Everything is quiet, empty;
in a cardboard box by my side
is her sketchbook, our locket,
her old phone. I look through the glass
at the blue cape that drapes
the sandy castle across the street,
watching as sleep comes for me,
mincing through hillside pines.

E--,

I packed your things today,
preparing for my new place:

donated all the old yoga clothes
ticked with high-tide sweat-marks -

kept the Turkish coffee set,
with its flattish copper faces -

still unsure about the books
that wait in the azure evening,

pages fluttering in a rain-wrest
that waves in with thick stacks of heat.

When we spoke last night,
it was like you were recalled from the dead:

The familiarity of your face and voice
filled this pink brain with ancient urges

that were almost immediately canceled
by the deep pauses of hairless hearts.

You are not really here,
although I sense you in everything.

The yellow Dulles gate is open to you -
if you choose to take it -

but you won't choose.
I am a forgotten drawing,

penned long ago
in a sketchbook left behind.

E--, you are a shadow,
standing in for a body

that still masters me
in all my essential motions.

I can't escape you,
& miss every minute

that our breath called common.
This sky is just a pale sapphire sheet

you saw hours ago. But now,
as you turn in for the night.

I send you my best.
Always, forever yours,

Dreaming of Dublin,
Evan

Woe to the world, the sun is in a cloud,
And darksome mists do overrun the day;
In high conceit, is not content allowed;
Favour must die and fancies wear away.
O heavens, what hell! The bands of love are broken,
Nor must a thought of such a thing be spoken.
-Robert Devereaux

Goodbye, mockingbird -
I must leave you now.
I have often watched you
hash across the yard
from your holly station,
chop chop chop with such vim,
from the leaf to the post
to the high-lidded lamp
that surveys the night dispassionately.

In return, how ungrateful I have been -
what terrible things
I have offered your shining bead
of an eye. In your tenure
on the gray-green sill
you have listened to the sharp salt
of my many difficulties
with perfect equanimity.

But now I must go.
Perhaps you will find me,
across the living ruins
of this capital city,
in the raining triangle
that corners down to Dupont.
Or perhaps you will stay sentinel
over this nest, deep in the green.
I will miss you, little bird.
My two brightest years
passed under your wing.

Ah! -
Summer is here -
No, stop -
Something is wrong -
Gray rain collects itself
into chilled coal-water in the road.
Burnt cocoa & cigarette smoke
fill all the engravings of air.
Thunder arrives in bands of purple,
as hawks circle in the twilight,
piercing the configurations of grass.
The mockingbird slips from the holly,
as if embarrassed or ashamed
to be associated with this high fog,
this greenish pallor.
Where are our shadows,
that played upon the brickwork?
The sun refuses to commit
to this dismal June.
Rain begins to fall,
late in the morning,
& all throughout the afternoon.