All things change to fire,
and fire exhausted
falls back into things.
-Heraclitus

Black block grove and glade -
it's all translated to wet geometry

by the patina of the rain slant...
It's like a spell has been laid on this place.

We are those without bedtimes,
the quick pestles of clocks grind

past Friday night into Saturday,
the sky tinted, louched:

greening cloudy wash wringing
opals into the late softened minutes.

Things fall back as they were before:
night dissolves in the cold window hood

until the only dark things left are hands,
unstill under sheets of morning lake.

"Winter's almost here,"
the wind maintains.
Open all the wine and beer,
winter's almost here
& cold will reign -
"winter's almost here,"
the wind maintains.

The birds are rioting - dispelled
in a shudder from the arm
of the fog-headed elm that splays
towards fresh pins of frost,
wind spoons them down to grass.
O little birds, I too am pulled -
a branching ardor folds and flays
my days to nights. Her easy charm
spills across me and I'm as lost
as the brittle leaf-eye that last
breaks from the tree into new winter...
The birds fork to ledge or hedge
as I walk on - my unruly center
tamed and shaped to urgent pledge.

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