I’ve gone color blind from staring
at the sun for too long,
or maybe at you for too long.
The leaves and sky seem to blend together.
Days start to blend together.
I hope the grass doesn’t bother you,
because my legs feel as if they’re made of it.
Always collapsing on each other,
even though I wish they’d collapse onto yours.
The worn out Oak that has spent today with us
is giving everything it has left,
but it fails to keep hints of sunlight from your face.
Sunlight always finds your face.
For as honest as we are,
you told me today that we are liars,
and I cannot disagree.
Because even though I say, “Nothing.”
when you ask what’s running through my mind,
I see oceans in your eyes
and constellations on your lips.

My eyes have been dry the past few days,
my mouth too.
I’ve been wearing my glasses more
and drinking too much water.
Is it possible to drink too much water?
Some say you can never drink too much.
I’m not sure.
All I know is that I can’t dilute
the concentration of you in my blood.
It’s become too thick.
I’ve been tripping over cracks and
folded carpet corners that don’t exist.
I’m not sure how I find my footing again
with the pounding in my head
and all the silence in my bones.
It’s the kind of silence I wish
I could share with you.
I’ve been tripping over myself,
like there’s knots holding me together.
And I’ve seen your fingers tie knots before,
how you delicately labor over each one.
How the perfect amount of string
is always left over for them.
I’ve seen you tie knots before,
because you’ve tied them with my heart,
and I don’t think they’ll ever come undone.
Oh, I don’t think they’ll ever come undone.

ash in rainclouds dripping air
lilac perfume in her hair
clipped on limestone as a marker
parades of silence growing darker


in such delicate hours
when u breathe in whispers
        and morninglit frosts
your ponytail neck
and
        hibiscus flowers
spill your time in glassine
fingers drowning moments
                       as nothing lingers

She hides her beauty,
Hair fondles windy nature—
Their open secret.

Here is a glass of water from my well.
It tastes of rock and root and earth and rain;
It is the best I have, my only spell,
And it is cold, and better than champagne.
Perhaps someone will pass this house one day
To drink, and be restored, and go his way,
Someone in dark confusion as I was
When I drank down cold water in a glass,
Drank a transparent health to keep me sane,
After the bitter mood had gone again.

The first time I kissed you, you felt like home. I kissed you again and again, all over until we realized at the same time and much too late that you’d had too much to drink. I would have kissed you when you left, too, but I was shy and you were beautiful and sometimes it’s scary on your first night in a new house.


You started a fire and I got there too late to put it out, to tell you I’m sorry they don’t understand and I’m sorry I don’t know your every crevice quite yet. The second time I kissed you, you welcomed me home and said sorry, I’m sorry that you don’t know how it started or where I put the lighter after I lit our home ablaze. 


I spent my heart pouring water on the embers of a grease fire that I thought was wood-burning. You threw sparks at me when I tried to tame the heat of your coals because I didn’t know how. The third time I kissed you, I called the old tenant and asked her how because I didn’t want to light myself with your manic flame. 


The fire turned to ash and the house got cold when I let myself in to rooms I hadn’t seen before. I used bobby pins to unlock the door instead of asking for the key; I suppose I should have known the abandoned nooks would have chilled the whole house. The fourth time I kissed you, your lips were blue and your eyes were open and I knew the flames were gone and I wasn’t sure I was glad. 


I don’t know when our house fell down. I was wrapped up in your eyes and how they don’t change when you smile at me when I looked around to find the walls on the ground and the roof blown away. The last time I kissed you, you said goodbye instead of goodnight and left me at the bus stop to find another home.

in how many ways can
the same thing be said?: when
your eyes first met mine, all
stars in all skies skipped but a
single heartbeat. inside my
own, winter called it quits and
frozen garden water crept in
tiny rivulets out from
solidified arteries. and i,
collecting all misplaced
palpitations like specks of
blue from an afternoon,
unfolding, watched the sun
set on an endless standstill to
let just one night trickle
through. one chorus of stars
was all it took. one million
lifetimes. a million millions,
intertwined.
                     all pages in all
universes could not even hold
the first word of my essay
upon the ways one heartbeat,
one simple glance, could
move each celestial body two
inches to the right, save you
and i.