I will dance
And I will spin
Until the room blurs
And the lightless gaps
Between swaying bodies
Absorb my ache
And longing

I will twist
And I will wring
Dizzily releasing
Whatever still clings
To my depleting soul
And replace it with champagne

And I will dance

They could seed
the clouds
with silver
in the high distance
until the sky,
hard and shining,
sent lacing rain
to drop at each
of our feet, 5,214
miles apart.

Miles of sea floor
& mountain back
sleep between us.
Miles of birds,
miles of laundry
on the line.
Miles of great aunts
smoking cigarettes
on the stairs,
miles of mice
slipping through
high grass.

If it seems far,
close your eyes,
because miles
drop quickly
in the dark;
you proved this
to me long ago.

They could seed
the clouds with
silver, but they won't -
instead I seed your
eye with this lyric
until it rains
inside you.

Some of the leaves have turned
To a perfect, Popsicle orange
While some are drenched in purple
Like a sad cleric that mourns
The hills are dressed in brightest yellow
Like flashbulbs going off
And varied reddish lipstick shades
Some fiery, and some soft
Coppers I see, like an old tea kettle
Or suntans on the beach
And mauve, ah sensuous mauve,
Like the skin of a ripened peach

I'm standing where I admired the leaves
As a child way back when
The colors, I think, must still be the same,
But they look different now than they did then

Two marriages
lay like stones
in the desert
behind me

& yet

I'll be sizing
rings with her
this weekend,
this new bond.

The heart
is so irrepressible,
so unregenerate,
so sincere,

even as it risks
everything.
I hold my breath
for years.

LOST BALLOON

crawling from the crash
I couldn't have died
if I tried

I had a son to save
laughed
spat in death's face

pulled him from the flames
I forbade him to die
he disobeyed

the car exploded
burning the edges
of the night

I survive
without him
a death in itself

my reflection
does all the talking
I just stare in the mirror

Christmas now
I feel like a lost balloon
sticking to the ceiling

YOU WEAR MY KISSES IN YOUR HAIR

You wear
my kisses

in your hair

invisible
to everyone

but us

they glisten
like emotional jewelry

bloom like flowers
of desire

you wear
my kisses

in your hair

smiling secretly
to your self

as to how
they got there

& to where
the other kisses

...are!