What if the lion was scared?
What if what goes up didn’t come down.
What if I placed a bet,
Somehow, against my garden.
What if i stopped looking,
What might I not find?
I know they didn’t build skyscrapers
To get closer to heaven.
What if the moon was no closer.
What if I could barely acknowledge,
The force it takes
For a blade of grass to grow.
And somewhere along a horizon I’ll never meet,
Lies the exploding of a star,
I named after you.

I’m waiting,
And not too desperately,
Until something is enough.
I desire,
Just as the moon moves tides,
Predictably,
Always on schedule.
The glass slipper I keep in my back pocket,
Grows cold, and I wonder if a different material might fit an idea more comfortably.
To say goodbye so many times,
Does not take anything from hello.
I’ve heard the core of the earth is very hot,
And that makes the most sense to me.
Somewhere beneath it all something burns,
And I want to know what it has to say.

She told me,
“I want to be close.”
I replied,
“It’s lovely to sit by a fire,
less lovely to be in one.”

I hope you cancel me,
I’m sick of you
and most everyone else.
They talk
too **** much.
Except for the mailman,
who comes
to my apartment building
everyday.
He puts every letter
in every right box.
He has made other mistakes
in this life,
but has never put a letter
in the wrong box.
And some of the letters
are regretful,
love letters
that in 2 years
will find themselves
in the fireplace.
Maybe a birthday card
from Buddy,
which will be kept forever
because it is the last one
you ever got from him.
The best letter I got
was from the queen
of Cap Hill,
and there were
no words written on it.
Blank piece of paper,
I wrote a poem on it
and threw it away.
I’ve seen the mailman everyday
for 28 years,
and he never says a word.

Tell me about how how you are a just a tourist everywhere you go.
Let me pick you up from the train station,
and drive you past
balance beam sidewalks
you once walked on
to get home after
you bulldozed the night
out of the sky.
Our lips tango
at every red light.
When they do,
I forget myself.
The light turns green,
I change the song.
I the mouse.
You the cat;
playing youthfully
with the terrified dinner you caught.

It was the kind of love
where when her heart would beat
blood would pump through my veins.

What good are these words
utterances
noise
in my ears
in my head.
They are always on sale,
and always on back order.
Words
surely won’t
bring back
the Amazon,
they won’t save
the pig
from the knife.
They will never
wrap themselves around
how much I miss the
girl I’ve never seen,
let alone met,
let alone kissed,
let alone left.
How I miss
the moon
that never set,
how I miss the words
I never said,
the place I’ve never been
filled with streets
I’ve never walked,
full of puddles
that reflect the green stop light,
the neon light
in the old star drenched bar
I never visited
to quiet
the words
in my head.
The words.
Always on sale,
always on back order.