The lambasted streets
in summer sing children’s songs.
Now snow scolds them mute.

i think to starlight i am not strange
(but to men, maybe
              
                                    )because

the day's wife, night, is richly
a girl who wears a colour that
is not a colour but is better
because it has fast hair that
is so with sheen and it is
pearlescent its body is furred
in a trillion minute zeniths
on which i stack my feet
climbing into her mouth my
body becomes 1 of only
an infinite and though i
die i shall again be in her
not strange (a star)

                             but to men, maybe

when i saw you hovering there
          some little
                    brown thing
i thought of my nails
          scraping across pink flesh
the amassing of skin under
          their beds
                                                 know this

had I been born from some kind of egg
         hatched as a larvae
                   thirsty for blood meal
the weight of the tortillas
        might not have felt
                   so light in my hand
as I brought them to you
        speed like colors
                   against a cabinet door

licking a paw on
the sill, grey-white shadow
of fur and sun beam

this paw must be clean
this paw must
be clean. this paw
must be clean

he will clean it by
rough tongue to silk fur coat
two licks and nudge
paw to face and back

becoming
a warm god in the sun
looking for hair disturbed
this paw must be clean

I might have seen you
          scouring the concrete ashtrays
                   for a half-smoked cigarette
drags of stolen nicotine
          flavored by the taste
                   of a woman's lipstick
black-brown animal eyes
          circled in charcoal
                   drag-queen precision
a rat-boy,
          tracing the maze
                    of a local shopping mall

A little blood, and then nothing.
Waited. But there were no cramps, no sweats.
No shrimp-like cell cluster.

She recalled the dates of this downfall: Of a
**** no law’d recognise.
Bus drivers’ strike.
Consultation with a grumpy-old-doctor-man.

"... you’re probably too late. Try an
Aspirin between your knees next time…”

This is how she told her love to me. Measured
against in-spite-of, not by because.

The loss of loved ones has clarified something
it is not that the ache of loss is profound
for it is

Neither is it that watching a loved one struggle
with the looming reality of passing wrenches the gut
for it does

the clarification comes after
the passing
the mourning
the sadness
and depression

the will

the clarification is
that no matter how spiritual we are
or
how much we love those others left with us
behind
that the division of property
most likely equals
division of family

and it is for that reason
that I hope there is no heaven
from which the passed
can look down
and be sad at what
has happened

despite best intentions

in their wake

.


                                                                                                  breath of sunlight
                                                       meeting dawn's ownmost
                                      steaming,
                  boulder soil
ascending






.