You were
long asleep
when I was
walking into
the beer garden.

I drank long
and deep
from a plastic
cup. The highest
alcohol content
I could find.
My blood was
a choir -
hallelujah.

I thought
of you
constantly.
My blood was
a mountain.
My blood was
a red crescent,
a ruby falling.

You sober up
with a mix of
alkaseltzer
& bread.
I don't make
any efforts,
letting the
blood drift
away on its
own accord.

I'm on your
page. Fifteen
year plans
& we want
the same
things. My
blood is
singing to
you, aria
after aria.

Tipsy on their Labor Day,
in rakia you're swimming.
Through hill's rooms you play,
tipsy on their Labor Day,
a heady plum bouquet,
glass waving, brimming,
tipsy on their Labor Day -
in rakia you're swimming.

All things
are equal
in length
& distance
from you -
the shyness
of tea steeping,
breezes
drawn off
Maryland's
green-armed
mountain,
night's gin
spill of
light on
the pane -
& don't forget
that I too
am in your
sphere,
more than
shadow,
less than
touch.

You are somewhere between
my coffee eye and
the toffee thighs of
the earth, bunching
into mountains,
scaffold to rivers.

You are something between
the wide words of Andric and
the wide words of your own,
a caravel in
the high tide
of my chest.

The moon's orange
like a rotten peach
crowded in a corner,
torn like wallpaper.

On the parapet,
etch my heart
into the air with
fading smoke.

Try to solve
the broken
code of stars.

Try to dissolve
the high miles
with *****.

Try to absolve
the gods that
made it this way.

Dad's college
favorite, he
screened it
for me in
the leaning
half-house
he rented.

The camera tilts,
searching for god,
finding only the
empty parentheses
of clouds, the iron
silence of ovens.
Famously,
the knight plays
chess against death -
god may be quiet,
but death is happy
enough to chat.

At the end,
the unbroken
line of the dead
dances up the hill,
inscrutable.
My dad drinks
bourbon from a
coffee cup,
old wet sting,
his thoughts
pulled in
like oars.

My skin's
fever,
your gaze's
brook -

Join me,
even if
to reach me
you must use
the milky way
for stepping
stones.

Each mile is
conspiracy
against us.

Each hour
of division,
is poison that
I am forced
to drink
with you.

You, with
Rapunzel's
tresses,
you are in
poems that
have always
existed.

No matter
how much
I want you
to lay there
and let me
read to you
by the light
of comets,
you can't
hear me.

You are
too far -

My skin's
sun,
your gaze's
moon.

You love him,
but he doesn't know.
All the stars go dim,
you love him,
with every breath a hymn,
but it doesn't show -
you love him,
but he doesn't know.

1980s,
America,
in a field.

I have a baseball,
and I'm throwing
& retrieving it.

At the edge of
the field is
a pine forest.

The forest is
unnaturally
still.

I'm afraid of it -
maybe it's
my subconscious,

maybe it's
death,
maybe it's just

the unknown.
Eventually,
I throw the ball

so deep
into the air,
a perfect arc,

that it enters
the forest's
edge. Slowly,

I go to find it.
Just inside
the forest

are strange
& hideous
snarls,

& then
something pushes
me down.

All the grass
in the field
turns black

in one moment.
The last thing
I see before the end

is the closing pines,
they're hungry,
so hungry.

I met you here,
in this nowhere.

Between us was
a world made
of a single
held breath
& we unfolded
it so carefully.

Then we
exported
hundreds of
pages, fragile
& subtle,
& my poems
released their
grip on sorrow.

Blue gardens
in your smile,

sun's epochs
in your laugh.

There are no
sane words to
describe you.

Ropes of
champagne,

thickets of joy,
moon-pure,

hazeled Pisces,
canyon of
ravishment.

Our cheeks
ached
with bliss.

The world only
makes sense
through you.

Your hand-cut
bangs and
slender neck...
Something knocks
over in the night -
it's my soul.

You draw the world
in front of you.
Hand's careful curl,
you draw the world
with eyes unfurled,
coffee like morning dew,
you draw the world
in front of you.

Dear H-----,

Everything then
is now, too,

memory
is plural.

In law school
I mentored you

& let you ******
me after I broke

up with the art
deco girl who

kept turning the
blade in my side as

if it were a key.  
It was a scandal -

I felt my name
crawling lip to lip,

caught library looks,
but didn't care.

Your sister taught me
the moon game

at your kitchen table
& then spread my blood

with her song.
Do you remember it?

When I drank
my acetylene pain,

you were so quick
to forgive. It left

an impression.
We came home late,

laughing so hard
we were *******,  

with the moon
tangled in the ivy.

But I was still hanging
from the blade of

the art deco girl,
& it wasn't fair to you,

dying like that.
And then when

my grandmother
died, I needed you

but it was too much
& you fled. It was the end.

You moved, and married.
I let the art deco girl

saw me apart
a few more times.

But I never forgot
how alive we were,

or the strange sound
of the lullaby I wrote you.

I had a father
bandaged with
quiet. And so
I also tasted
that silent
gauze.

I had a mother
drunk with
self-regard,
stumbling feeling
to feeling.
& so I felt
everything
enormously.

It took so long
to find balance.
I carved a voice
from white marble.
I opened my hands
and let things
escape.

It's not about
the damage,
it's the long
walk back.

Thoughts like fire,
all about you.
Wilding desire,
thoughts like fire
devouring a pyre
to love unsubdued -
thoughts like fire,
all about you.

Clouded ****,
nail's slow sink,
stone blood rink,
corrected lines.
Brunette sway,
ensorcelled flock
of locks, half-blocks
great hazel bay.
Humid bone,
inky throne,
column's silk,
buttermilk,
scarlet lip,
laugh's skip.

Cinder-headed,
I swim smoked
tea until tongue's
angles of ash.

Marbling ache,
eyes threaded
with fever, skin
rides every last

avenue in the air.
Thoughts scatter,
ice diary desolate,
cinder-headed.

You travel today
to Belgrade:
nightclub-on-quay.
You travel today
on an hour's ray
over green brocade.
You travel today
to Belgrade.

Mother hit me
with the cutting
board for years -

until it broke
across my five
year old body.

She's mourned the
board ever since,
apparently it was
a real favorite.

Then she'd chase
me, with her hand
like a mouth, saying

"Alligator, alligator,"
and pinching me
terribly if she
caught me,

laughing,
laughing,
she was
laughing.

Don't feel blue,
Melis dear -
there's so much to do.
Don't feel blue,
you'll see it through.
Sorrow will clear!
Don't feel blue,
Melis dear.

The train's
cleated toes
perch on volts
before dipping
into the cobalt
hologram of
morning.

White pebbled
floor reflects
in the window,
the platform's
strip of faces
wades through
ghostly stars.

The train climbs
the rusted ladder
with humming
hands. The anthem
of sun a blinding
glint on the hide
until it shrieks
into the earth.

Tunnel's halogen
skin dappled
with aluminum
song. This is
my stop, step
through the
birthing wings
into the ceramic
meadow. Gate
opens, subtracts -

I'm an Orpheus,
looking back as
a silvered Eurydice
is pulled away
from me with
a scream.

My fingers in yours,
walking so stately.
Cut cloud pours?
My fingers in yours.
Thunderhead roars?
I smile sedately,
my fingers in yours,
walking so stately.

As a child I'd run
slashing through lawn,
a green noose drawn
under butter sun.
I remember eating
belladonna at six,
black berries picked
under fence's fleeting
shadow by the square
of grass. I ate a pair,
and didn't go mad
more than I had
been. No one knew -
except now you.

In the deeps
of my night,
your sun opens.
The sight
of your words
sugars me.

When my own sun
achieves the tartness
of noon, you are
opening a book
beneath a
bismuth moon.

For you I still
a heartbeat, send
it on its way.
It will reach you
by morning.

In the dream
I'm a child
in a car
waiting for
someone to
come back.

I wait for
some time.
I climb the
seats, feel
the leather
between my
fingers,
roll down
the windows,
play with
the orange
float of the
cigarette
lighter.

But no one
comes. I realize
that it's raining
leaves and bits
of brick.
The world is
bottomlessly
vacant. I'm not
even sure who
I'm waiting for.
I curl up into my
favorite jacket.

I know it's about
abandonment.
My veins fill with
ampersands,
my eyes with
the ace of clubs.
I can feel my
breath blowing out
like a chandelier
of pain for just
a moment.

Then I pull it
together under
the dangling
jellyfish of stars,
to see what else
sleep has up
its sleeve.

Such perfect lines -
the green smears
of woman on the
right, the blue
river stroke,
long white strings
along the women,
each to each.
Yellow drifts here
& there. Black
in little pools.

It's a horrible
sadness. Are they
scattering ashes?
Was someone
lost at sea? Is the
green woman hiding
tears behind
the seashell fan?
Why is there
such a terrible
sameness of sky
& water and earth?

There is something
awful here. The faces
all turned away
from us. Nature's
straight, the women
bent and twisted,
& the texture -
everything is
coming apart.

The life and
death of it -
Four thousand
years of relics
confront me as
memento mori:
glazed plate,
wine cup,
& garland of
jasmine blossoms.
Every hand
that knew
these is dust.

But in another
breath I'm in
my head, where
you are an
archaeologist,
recovering each
of these priceless
things: from under
far hill, in a copse
shaped like an "X,"
in meadows that
seem innocent,
but dig and gold
shines the eye.

Bronze after bronze
after bronze -
all yours. It's so easy
to see how this could
have been you -
hunting history
down to the bones.

Astrolabe,
book of jade,
turquoise drake
curling and curling.
They are all two
things at once:

They speak
the mortal voice
directly to my
deepest ear.
They are also
symbols of a
version of you
I see so easily -
in love with
the past, eager to
find it, wherever it
might be, unearth it
& swallow it whole.

Night glass
full of froth,
the one-arm
scissor's voice,
a balestra
of cold idea,
a zugzwang
where I must
speak, I must,
but every word
will haunt me,
like the faces
of vapor that rise
at dawn from
the lawn.

The stars are
dying up there,
as the brute
sun rises again
& they fade
to zero
in the blue.  
I have such
terrible flurries
of thought
at night,
everything is
crushing, but
inevitably the black
gives way to indigo,
then a delicate purple,
then to bright cobalt.
Things are better
under the opening
sun and its
tanning wing.

The devil sits
beside me,
feeding me his
melting whispers
dense as biscuits
full as the head
of the tree.
I can only banish
him back to his
bottle with the
piano, writing
songs in D minor,
letting the paint
listen as the hands
are moving,
weaving spells.

Finally, order
in my mind -
these doubts
will pass from history -
evanescence.
Other worries fall
like rippling castles.
I wake up too early
but there you are.
Things seem ok
in the deep deep
blue of morning,
stars hanging dead
in the sky as the
carving sun toasts
away the dew,
and doubts fade
back to zero.

Lace curtains
of merlot
down the side
of my glass -
I saw that color earlier
in the fold of a
Madonna's gown.
I'll see it again,
when I close my eyes.

Blame the
wine for dreams
that fold into
forms. Blame it
for another salvo
of mistakes.  
In the seven hours
between us, I have
somehow found
every wrong step.

I went to
weddings on
the mountain,
I went to
weddings by
the sea.

I went to a
wedding of
paper,
I went to a
wedding
of flame.

I went to two
of my own.
Somewhere
is a third
that will last
the distance.

Charmed alliance,
are you the one?
By leaf or sand,
whatever binds you,
are you the love
I need?

My cubist
face looks out
the window at a
moon wrestling
sinuous blackish
clouds that fling
welting scales of
rain in little belts.

My face enjambs
like these lines,
& I catch sight of
the cloud basin
climbing higher
& higher into
the upper champagne
of the atmosphere,
clouds the same
shade as dull teeth
in a wet mouth.

The angles of
my jaw -
cameras fail
to distill it.
Or I am so full
of wild will
that no one
notices my face
is a trompe l'oeil.
In this pale light
I'm all cheek
and brow-
another bottle
of wine and I
can smear my
own memory of it.  

The clouds
I mentioned, they
fell one by one
into the Anacostia
river, never to be
seen again.

Though I always try,
I am not always a
creature of grace.

Sometimes I open the
same foolish veins
as everyone else.

I can look back
in sadness and anger
& feel like hell about it.  

One worry masquerades
as the other - hard
to tell them apart.

But once you've pulled
it together, at the bottom
are the unassailable truths.

It doesn't take grace
to know your heart,
only a hard-won trust.

There is always
a little uncertainty
& a little worry.

It always pays to be
alive and open to the
width of the world.

And, darling, there are
people like you
for whom it's all worth it.

Never Fear, love, never fear,
although you only know me here.
If the distance feels austere,
never fear, love, never fear.
For when I am at long last near,
touch to touch at our premiere,
you'll never fear, love, never fear,
although you only know me here.

I will make us coffee,
& you will make us tea -
in leaves and grounds
our fortunes found,
& and what is meant to be.

Do you
think about
when we
discovered
hornets
in the grass
lot by the
apartment?
They were
drunk on
fallen apples,
and just
watched us
laconically.

I hope you
think about
yourself the
same way -
look back
& remember
you were
a hornet,
lance-cruel,
drunk on sugar,
having wings
you didn't use,
as I walked away.

I'm sure
you don't
think of me
at all. Good -
I hope that
I am your
lacuna.

Rare girl,
so full of life,
watch how
three cartwheels
of years pursue
you, for you
are born from
the shavings of
the sun's golden
flanks, from
crystal splinters
of full moon,
from dreaming
flakes of rain -
little pieces of
every day that
went missing
over three years,
sliding away
to assemble you,
on that
perfect day.

Those three years
will always lie
to you, tell you
your birthday is gone
when they have
bundled it away.

But they know
that every
fourth year
you will
come for it,
& you will
open the day
like a package,
& with a spoon
you will eat the
honeycomb of sun
that is your birthright,
the sweet milk of moon,
on dishes of rain.

You are so open
to the world
because you are
so much of it.

A wasp is
singing.
The wet dusk
is coming,
imprint
on the air.
The sun
retreats to
the far side
of the world,
bestowing
the sky to
a pink moon.

Dear Pisces,
I share these
things with you.
I give you
the scent
of rain over
fresh cut grass.
I give you
every cloud
set loose
in the sky.
I give you
the broken
cherry branch
the children
pretended
was a sword.
I give you
the haunting
shadows that
play across
the stoic faces
of houses on
Gallatin Street.

I give you
every word
of my life.  
A prismatic
night mumbles
with new rain,
and clouds
smear vaguely
across a blue city.
Come, be with me
in the middle of it.

You're off the plane
back in Istanbul,
where your heart
was made. Now, at night,
it seems a little peculiar
this time.

But you've got all the time
in the world. The plane
is long gone for some peculiar
destination, while Istanbul
belongs only to you tonight,
you can explore its heart...

Yes, tell me all about that heart
and about all the times
you walked out into the night
and looked up at the trails of planes
flying far above the lights of Istanbul -
They must have said it was peculiar,

to want to leave on one. Or not peculiar,
maybe it felt natural, easy in the heart,
a readiness to leave old Istanbul
and embrace someplace else this time,
to climb aboard the waiting plane
and fly off into the night.

When you land, it's still night -
isn't that peculiar?
The plane disappears
and it's just you and your heart
this time.
Say goodbye to Istanbul -

So many places aren't Istanbul,
all of them under the night
of drowsy stars and slow time.
It's rather peculiar
how the heart
is faster than any plane.

But this time, love, you're in Istanbul.
I watched your plane cruise the night.
It's peculiar how my heart hurts.

Welcome home,
little darling,
to the starry comb.
Welcome home
to dine on tomes.
Hear the starlings?
Welcome home,
little darling.

You are somewhere between
my awaiting gaze and
the awaiting days that
sit on the tongue's edge
of history, under sun's
streak that hems our world.

You are something between
the wise words of Hikmet and
the wise words of your own,
flown to me from
the Bosphorus,
full of wishes.

Fly home, my dear,
and love your life.
Until you're near
fly home, my dear,
don't veer,
but straight as a knife
fly home, my dear,
and love your life.

The airport
bar in Boston,
I'm sway
drunk
& holding
my glass as
if it's liquid
gravity.

She sits
next to me,
technically.
But she's
drifting away
like Orion into
unreachable
courts of evening.

Its a hard thing
to live with
someone who
loves you
less and less.
Rooms are
always empty
& loneliness
settles like
ash on the soul.

The heart
passes sentence
against itself.
Guilt's rapier
parries any
kindness.

Sometimes
I was desperate
and clawed
my way through
acres of gin.
It never
ended well.

But at that
airport bar
I first heard
a voice calling
from under the
scattered waves of
the alcohol sea
inside me.

It told me
the truth:
her love was
guttering
like a candle
whose wax
is fleeing
across the table.

We'll be seven
hours apart
& heaven
for poor Evan

is across the chart.
I already feel
love's dart
transfix my heart.

But night's wheel
goes by,
& day's repeal
undoes the seal

& soon we will tie
our voices tight.
I send a lullaby,
carried with a sigh.

Think of me,
at your wedding.
With honey and brie,
think of me.
With coffee and tea,
& gifts of silk bedding,
think of me
at your wedding.

Your echoes
swim inside
me for hours.
Every shallow
shadow is forced
to eat your light.

Still, these cruel
miles stretch
like tendons.

For you,
I will fill the
catacombs of
night with
peaches
& music,
I will recklessly
drink a kick
of sun as it pours.

But to touch you...
It hurts to see
a sunset dying,
last gasps
of little coral,
and feel air
in the palm
of my hand.

Still: April denies
what May will grant.

Bittersweet,
this leaving.
It may have
turned a little,
but it was always
underneath you,
a comfort.

Still, your
blissed heart
is filled with
butterfly wings,
& the book-edge
horizon beckons
with sunrises:

You'll go east,
to friends who
can intuit the
new green spaces
growing inside you.
Tell them
       everything.


I will be waiting,
the face that
adores you,
like a prince
trapped in
a mirror,
restless to come
& enter the
world of hands
and lips -
& whispers that
ignore the ear
& dive straight
to the castle
of the soul.

We who went into the 4 a.m. of the world
regretting nothing but an unfinished song.

We who were murdered in the darkest lanes
and at the corner of the street.

I was much further out than you thought,
starless and fatherless, a dark water -

rescue me from this ocean.
In this part of the story I am the one who

changes minute by minute.
Beauty is the sole business of poetry -

I go on loving you like water but
every night fire breaks out from windows in Üsküdar.

Your hair is a coy half-veil
across a bewitching smile.
Breathing comes a little quicker,
brown eyes fill with liquor -
good god, but you beguile.

My darling one,
here is your breeze.
I also send the sun,
my darling one,
and I'm not done:
here, have the Hyades.
My darling one,
here is your breeze.

Your
light-
headed
morning
leaves me
anxious:
the mist
in the
air seems
impenetrable,
& the
sun is
forgotten
in a gray
pocket.

Getting
out, you're
searching
for baby's
building,
lace dress
in box's
paper
nestle.
You send
a picture
and I'm
liquid as
a tea light.

My
thoughts
follow
you,
step for
step.

A long
night of
mixing
memories
with
high-test
beer
fades me.
In the morning
the nephew
builds a fort,
abandons it
to run a
railway.
In an
act of god,
the rails
are crushed
with laughter.

I'd give
anything
to rise
from the
bottom of
this sea
of boxes
and take
your
temperature
with the
back of
my hand
against
your brow.

The blood is true
in what it needs,
& what it needs is you.

My blood was blue,
but red it bleeds
if blood is true.

"Please come through,"
my heart's pleads -
what it needs is you.

"Xoxo," your preview.
I don't mislead,
the blood is true.  

My heart's subdued
without you, I concede -
what it needs is you.

We both know what to do,
& soon we will be freed -
The blood is true,
& what it needs is you.