In a past life
I think I was
an elevator operator.
Like one
back in the olden
days.
Going up.
And down.
And up again.
Back down.
Talking about
the weather
with people
who were somewhat
strangers,
even though
I saw most of them
everyday.
And when I first started,
I liked the music,
but anything played
over and over again
starts to sound like hell.
It was an elevator
I had never gotten off.
And I know I was
an elevator operator
in a past life
because it wasn’t
so long ago.
Now I’m somewhat
more of a crane operator,
or a train conductor,
the card in my own
back pocket,
or the time it takes
the occipital lobe
of a child
to register the light
in the pupil
that paints the picture
of everything new.

And I’d go to church in the mountains
and sing praises with the crows in the pines
to a god most misunderstood,
rarely seen or heard;
the lynx of the feeling in my sternum,
the missing word in my vocabulary that
has bought permanent real estate
on the tip of my tongue.
And then she looks at you
with Medusa eyes
that turn you to stone.
You lie there naked
arms and legs woven together
like sacred silk,
the warm blanket of god,
the purring lynx.

This whole thing
might be harder
if we were more aware.
Ignorance is my EpiPen.
Tell me stars are just fireflies
putting on a show,
all for me.
Convince me
that you are not from here,
but here alone.
Persuade me
there is an after party
where you will meet me
and we’ll take the tram
out of the skylight
and fall asleep together
in a bed of telephone wires
carrying words of honey.
Assure me that rivers
stay the same,
that days never end,
the nights don’t either,
that the world is static,
and that I’ll feel this way forever.
Lie to me if you have to,
but do it with the same
sugar cane lips
you press to my shoulder.

We lay there naked
loving and laughing,
soundlessly saying
sweet things
with delicate finger tips,
escaping, for a moment,
from the fire
burning the world
outside the bedroom
door.

Light pollution
may be
a necessary evil.
But beyond that,
the only other necessary evil
I know of is love.
My heart goes far away,
when I think about her.
We are rubber bands
laid next to another
amongst many others
on the bungee rope
that ties the sun
to the earth.
This rope is strong,
but it stretches
and constricts
in a way that
brings the winter
and the summer,
the day and the night,
darkness and light;
you are the martini
of my Monday.

I am not the lion
I am the impala.
I am the cabinet
in the kitchen
left wide open.
I am here
for so much of my life
setting alarms
on my phone
for the next morning.
The ash tray
is filled
with exactly 73 cigarettes,
but not exactly 73 memories,
and not exactly 73 regrets.

I’ve never considered
that there was ever
a moment
that music didn’t enhance.
But I’ve finally found
a peace in my life,
however fleeting,
where the green light
on Grant street
is the drop
I’ve been waiting for.