Five March, Березень, пятый, these
clouds, butterflies, this old anger and
this rotten coffee ***. Mold and clouds.
The insufferable beauty of potholes, we walk Yulitsa Kikvidze
and note buildings blotched with satellite dishes
(mushroom sprouts from Soviet brick) concrete
proof that we exist. Yesterday, I say
I will not be a prime squared again
for seventy-two years: happy birthday, маленькая кошка! Snowlit
clouds, ice and broken asphalt, springtime in Kiev is all
disappointed dogs, life after love.

Small berms of snowice and cigarette
butts line beneath the awning sidewalks
of Yulitsa Pushkinska, impenetrable.

We have yet to decide
how to slice ourselves open, how to
conspire for casualties. Desire
lingers like four days’ melt mid-winter.

Who really feels day to day that
nothing will change? This faith
in schedules, taxes, credits, furtive
moments with a familiar lover, this
lack of spasms and undramatic intent
can suffice for half a lifetime, but you’ve
become an unreliable narrator in your own
novel, prone to
wild speculation and impulsive looks
at other women.

I have sat beside a number of snow-numbed
train stations. I am the smoking man, invisible
in my ivy hat and grey wool coat.

I have been thinking of you
for decades occasionally
sipping coffee from a paper cut.

The cats have more sense than to loiter
where the dog with the compound fracture
begs scraps among the cigarette butts and slush.
It would break your heart a thousand times
in quick succession, create a fluttering
like a cold pulseless breeze. The old women
on the wet stone steps sell onions, parsley
potatoes, pickles, spices and wooden matches. The
veteran of the old war sleeps ******* his
shoulder, and I think of you again
**** it.

If I could climb every tree in this world, I wouldn't dare. There are far too many places where the trees aren't worth the climbing. I pick my trees like I pick my teachers, there are lessons in this world that I need more than the others, lessons that make me gasp with the grip they are holding on my tongue. If there were a temple at the base of Mount Everest, I would be the first person to go there without asking for anything in my prayers, knowing that this mountain held everything I could possibly use inside of its belly and I had only to reach its core. But if the temple were at the top I wouldn't bother, there are things I need to learn to do and climbing mountains isn't one of them, I've got plenty of problems here on Earth and I don't need to touch the sky to know that Heaven's got 'em too. I couldn't imagine a Heaven without a good climbing tree. There is no such thing as pure unadulterated joy, if I'm going to be happy for eternity I'm going to keep climbing knowing that boredom will be the one thing that is always out of my reach, because joy without anything to compare it with is completely and utterly pointless. My God, She'd understand that. She would bring me up above the clouds but continue to put obstacles in my way so I could know the glory of feeling proud for what one has accomplished. But my God exists only in my poetry so while I am still alive, you can bet your *** I'll still be climbing. Those trees will not have a branch untouched, there is a whole forest waiting to breathe its secrets into my veins and I plan to live there until I'm full. When I am full, I will be happy to go to your Heaven so long as it has volcanoes with bellies deeper than I think I will ever reach. There is always something different to learn.

Funny how we woke up in the morning
and pretended that tomorrow never happened—
strutted naked in mirrors celebrating our youth,
laughing, knowing suns and moons couldn’t do the same.

We borrowed our arms from the fridge
and peddled bicycles with bad breath—
trading war stories ‘cause we knew
if we came back alive
life would still be the death of us.

As if sunshine and rain got
together to play a trick on poor
cloud

Razor-tipped pencils that surgically
               slice patterned pages
Soft brushes from fingertips like afterthoughts
                    puddling atop pillows

it may seem like
nothing, but the
boys used to call
me bush and this
girl named Sierra
would lie about
our friendship,
i've been ugly
more times than
I can count and
because I never
forgave them I
still spend every
day trying so
hard to be

loved