When I say that I didn't get much sleep last night,
I mean that I spent seven hours in my bed
Thinking about the way that the morning light
might play off of your skin
And the way that you would shift and snuffle
into the mattress at my first nudge
And my light breath would be against the nape
of your neck,
Breathing in your contentedness
and how happy the sun is
To be warming your shoulders up as you wake.

So no, I didn't get much sleep last night.


  *"I think I'm falling asleep
   but then all that it means is
   I'll always be dreaming of
   you."

You told me black was your favorite color,
and I have always preferred lace, myself,
so I found something to make us both happy.

I knew I would see you today,
and if I leaned over in just the right way
you'd see the quick peek of what's hiding underneath
this light summer dress-the kind that lifts off so easily,
and you would wonder if it was for you.

Did you notice?
It was not an accident, but an invitation.
And something about the way
you placed your fingertips over your lips
to hide the smile slowly spreading across them
tells me that you accept.

In love they wore themselves in a green embrace.
A silken rain fell through the spring upon them.
In the park she fed the swans and he
whittled nervously with his strange hands.
And white was mixed with all their colours
as if they drew it from the flowering trees.

At night his two finger whistle brought her down
the waterfall stairs to his shy smile
which like an eddy, turned her round and round
lazily and slowly so her will
was nowhere—as in dreams things are and aren't.

Walking along avenues in the dark
street lamps sang like sopranos in their heads
with a voilence they never understood
and all their movements when they were together
had no conclusion.

Only leaning into the question had they motion;
after they parted were savage and swift as gulls.
asking and asking the hostile emptiness
they were as sharp as partly sculptured stone
and all who watched, forgetting, were amazed
to see them form and fade before their eyes.

I asked for a city, you gave me its parts.
I wanted a machine, an unrelenting automaton.
You gave me its people.
You gave me their emotions, their creations, their charity, their sin.
I never asked for all this.
I never asked for the thought-provoking ramblings of a beggar.
I never asked for the rhapsody of a lone saxophone player.
I never asked for the smell of rain on asphalt.
All this,
the thoughts of a young philosopher on a train,
the gaze of a hopeless romantic at a café,
the glimmer in a woman's eyes as a car passes by in the rain,
I asked for an emotionless machine, an unwavering citadel of apathy.
I never asked for this.
I asked for a city, you gave me its parts, *Thank You.