The early blurry dark tar drape,
the annihilating television sky -
under it, we're drifting floes

in a snow-veined river as winter
shadows slum through a beetle-browed
rowhouse valley, all the stars frozen

& ****** away by slow and humid glow.
Tomorrow's rain belongs to tomorrow -
tonight's pattern is hot and pink,

like something simmering just underneath
tautly-sheeted strokes of skin.
Must all our poisons be so sweet?

Swig and swim in dimming seethe,
plastic cup palomas, beers held
close to chest as voices lap
up steeply to black rafters.
Standing close, I feel you breathe
under my hands, and swell
with music, ribbon-wrapped
in clap and laugh.
These nights, they roll on in wild waves:
we're falling bed into bed,
our touch like breaking bread
before a feast where nothing's saved
for later - not a single bite...
Then day rises cold and wet and white.

We’re playing the long game.
We share things, we’re lovers,
we slip in and out of each other’s lives
like jackets hanging on the back of a door.

Relationships are like instruments,
they must be played, kept in tune,
the carnal and the corny balanced,
carefully, like sections of an orchestra.

Sometimes, I feel that I have to bring the energy,
BE the entertainment - and I can do that - in spades
but not forever - I’m not a tireless-giver - in fact,
I'm atavistically Parisien (we admit loving nothing).

I’m learning that when a relationship’s conducted,
at great remove, the basics - like punctuality,
dependability and preparation - become a big deal.

When I’m in an optimistic headspace, I think we can do it,
maybe, that we know what we want and who we are.

That we’re playing the long game

I'm pulled down the boulevard,
the shining hide of the hired car
reflecting all the salted yellow blots
that fringe the crashing air.
Speckled city, I climbed her stair
when the night grew late and taut:
I embraced all the darkest angles
of her room, the candied tangles,
the breasted murmurs, the knot
made of half-started words,
until the mind got waxy, slurred
by louche, unchaperoned thoughts...
O car, this hour with desire's bruised -
if you take me back, I won't refuse.

O cloud head, loping with raw rain,
take this breath in your breezy ferry
street by street into the east,
where she sits cradled in lamplight
while fistfuls of autumn's mane
slap across brick dark as sherry.
O cloud head, kneaded and greased
by the blue fingers of humid night,
give over my breath and tell her
I'll be waiting for tomorrow
to reclaim it from her parted lips;
tell her that my brain purrs
with fever, and every red borough
of my body still feels her insistent grip.

A mouse broke its bones
on my neighbor's floor;
I was called in mercy,
as the angel of slaughter.
My heart was the water
in which it drowned.
Days later, the wound
closed when I met Circe:
my silverish lion's stony
fringe burned away in smolder.
I left her starry thigh,
her eyes like cask strength rye;
They live, we sleep - No,
we're awake and night is slow.