"Then I realized I had been murdered. / They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries, and churches / …. but they did not find me. / They never found me? / No. They never found me."
-Lorca, "The Fable and Round of the Three Friends"

I dreamt that I died in green,
on a midnight hill slab
where the grass was speaking

in the hungry language
of new summer:
"Your headstone is but a tooth

gritted in my lawn jaw
gnashing the June fog
while wind slouches

into the crutched arms
of the evening maple wash.
Who will find you here,

your tongue throwing poems
clotted with moss and mood?"
I woke to a jousting shadow

charging up the wall
& the toddling pink sun
lathe spun to brighter pool.

The dream of death
hung from my ear,
whispering of green.

Join me, in this tumbledown
brick palazzo ruled by the bones
of a queen singing and swearing
that we'll never walk alone.

We can read in the oak pocket,
order ale from the cellars,
watch as the hanged man
steams with oily nostalgia,

well-waxed stories blossoming
& shrugging from his trolley tongue,
tales of silver-roaded loves he's had,
back in a lawless youth.

Love is a game you can't win,
insists the hanged man,
but if you're oh so careful
you can lose very slowly.

When I’m in the dark
All I want is him,

Blurred silhouette warm to the touch,
Skin to skin in the dim.

When the contours in the corners loom,
Hold me without sight.

In the dark, and nothing else,
We are one shadow, slight.

When the lights come on,
Unfortunate details grow.

Like a **** from a crack,
A blemish in the snow.

In the savage of the day,
The barriers of our skin discrete,

We just can’t make sense,
When light and eyes meet.

The nightingales are sobbing in
The orchards of our mothers,
And hearts that we broke long ago
Have long been breaking others
-W. H. Auden

At 6 am there was thunder
loud enough to wake me and the cats
rain toe-tapping on the pane
calling us to the theater:

"Come look at us, heavy clouds
of dark morning: spray-headed,
sunrises in our throat.
Enjoy our Sunday eyes"

I did. The paper people
at the bus stop huddled
& dissolved under wet slants.
The crust of horizon broke away

into thick puff-parcels, and
beneath it all the water flung
itself against the scory stone
before escaping down the drain cape.

"Come look at us, the wet-nurses:
our hands on the doll-face petals,
the walls of leaves. We evaporate
into the sea engine, purring with life."

Long stripes of petrichor,
gather in the cuff-corners
of the nightwalk - I miss her,

the blonde from group therapy
however many years ago, L-----,
whose upper case traumas

mirrored mine on that beige couch
by the waiting room sand garden.
Hard-hided years, those,

& I hope she did OK.
Myself: I tried in desperation to marry
someone who simply didn't run,

& you can imagine how that went.
I remember seeing L----- on a Wednesday
or Thursday morning, so surprised

I existed outside therapy. Greening wings
of grass spread across Farragut's diagonal,
& her black shoe arch pressed the world

firmly away. She rafted into a doorway
as everyone eventually does in a life.
The sun called in sick, the moon

maw yawed and yawned, the sea
throbbed foam over stone. New rain
on my face - it was just rain, just rain, just rain...

Curious things emerge
from this last cup of gin.
Maybe I've been too alone
with the rain and with drink
because strangers converge
into thumb-smudged skins
washing over smoothed stone
into the storm's glottal rink...
I'll stop there and stem
these mannequin thoughts
seeded by a dollar's solitude,
watered by a fallen hem
of night. Thunder's brought
a brand new mood...