icarus died smiling
hot wax still dripping down on his thigh
a feathered autograph in cirrus cyrillic
signed in sky like a rebel flag on the moon
i was here

pitter patter rain paints bob ross
patterns on the pavement
heavy clouds ask gravel paths
in broad strokes what its name meant

my name is gently nestled in tread
of tire, boot, and tooth
travelling down the pallet of
a city past its youth

i’m texture in your travels,
trodden static underfoot,
i’m to and from and back and forth
and won’t ever stay put

the precision of a shooting star
cuts capricorn from horn and hoof
unscabbard moon left half ajar
the surgeons light on retrograde roof

unspooling stitchings from toe to tooth
they seemed less loose from where we are
unzipping zodiacs with exsecting truth
black blood pooling in gods back yard

she loved like the first rock in the rings of saturn
solitary circling space flotsam
still invisible. not yet beautiful

she loved like the first eye formed
in the primordial ocean.
what was ever less seen

she loved like the first word.
what so fully shaped, so fully intentional
was less understood

she loved like the first note,
some harmonic oscillation played by a nascent zephyr
on a Pangean chasm; heard only by what some call god
and others called nothing - well before there words or eyes
or rings of saturn

and she loved like the last love
the whimpering call of the last dodo on its last day
a requiem for a dream always realised too late

Sea pecks sand with tidal kisses
salt spray perfume reminisces
granular tingling in curves on shore
toe curled footprints shifting floor

flooding valves and deepened flush
foaming roar and heaving rush
'til surf sweeps scene with praticed care
a promise there was nothing ever there

the moon pulls the tide over the sand like a blanket over a babe that turns in their sleep

It’s midnight somewhere and the waves repeat simple instructions
ssshhhh

my galaxy is an anagram of hers.
she wakes on planet heart
I sleep under a sky full of rats

she works as an astronomer,
i moonlight as a moon-starer
and she may be morose
but i am moreso

because, all the way in andromeda,
that glittering, nebulous bubble bath
where Cygnus and Leo playfully paddle,
Orion wears a scarf,
and she never left