“Let it go,” he said.
So I release it all slowly,
like those 99 red balloons that saved
our little misled souls on bad teenage days.
Release it, and watch it float up and away
in 99 different directions,
in 99 different shades of ruthless red.
Let it go, and instruct yourself
to set fire to any and everything
it’s ever touched.
Burn the bridges, scorch the paths,
cauterize the arteries that
pumped warm blood for its purpose.
Set the fires, and let the light
from the florid flames
illuminate the corners
of your newfound smile
as you watch the embers
dance themselves
into white, meaningless ash
above your head.

Our bodies are poetry
from soft to smooth to hard
our bodies are poetry
freckled, shaped and scarred

Our mouths are dancers
unchoreographed, with memory
our fingers are virgins
gentle and trembling

Our eyes, are passerbys
our noses, cuddling cubs
our arms, reconnecting friends
our knees buckle with every touch

Our bodies are poetry
fitting into every groove
our bodies are poetry
from hard to soft to smooth

For Helene.


Ashes on the water, now.
Love's bones like dust downstream.  
At least it got to see itself in our eyes,
Feel itself between hand holding hand

And whispered caresses.
From pillow talk to fists raised at
Concerts, glasses of Portuguese wine
On her balcony to the sound of magpies

We named our neighbours.
We were beautiful.
Began beautifully.
Ended gracefully.

I open hands that held hers and see
Nothing but skin worn by labour,
And air.
Ashes on the water, now.

Embers without a chance against rivers  
Cold with melted mountain snow and
Unyielding differences.
Some loves drown with lungs too full

To cry; others float like a funeral-pyre-
Longboat into the night, ablaze.
King and queen, hand upon hand.
Crowns tied from fresh flowers,

We were beautiful.
Began beautifully.
Slid apart the way a glacier parts from
The hills; slowly, but with the force

Of its thousands of tons.
Ashes on the water,
Where the ghost of our union rests
Underneath the surface of our memories.

I will remember you.
Until the stars burn out, raining the
Dust of themselves like snow upon
These waters that always are moving.

I stay awake with stars, thinking of your eyes
amber fields, flecked with golden moons
your lips, red cast by secret coral worlds
swim, my hands you catch in woven nets
roped hair of salt and seaweed curls
hold my breath, catch and save myself
nightly, in the deep end, just before I drown.

I cannot lose the images, though I try
still the memories of Dragoon imbue my mind
evenings beneath agave moons, full bloomed
the silhouetted century plant flowers
the day's last light, the final sun shadows
our night hikes under Venus skies
signaled the fall, the bright blinking call
of night sweeping stars, and too the flashing,
the sparkling gold of our two souls
unearthed amid the giant stones
ancient, sacred through the ages
in the moments of truth
when love finds a home.

On days like this
cool, with little winds
desert birds forage for sticks
they build nests perched in cactus
some build green in palo verde trees
always I think of baby birds in spring
hatchlings, the fledglings that fly
I travel far beyond the noise of towns
watch the movement of cooling clouds
the roundness of rain upon the ground
the grey banked scurrilous skies
of hurried birds, their silhouettes before a storm
daisies that close, cold amid the stones
beneath where snakes and lizards go
slither and crawl in this landscape of saguaros
and I, ever tethered can only dream to fly.

I saw forever in your eyes. . .


                Then you closed them.