Oh, sweet lithe creature!
You radiate light
And warmth
And a playful arrogance, harmless rebellion

Your smell is clay and moss,
Cigarette and cologne and Society

We burn burn burn through the night
And share sweet desire and bitter coffee

But you turn on your heels
And go. Go!

When I see you again we'll be ghosts
I'll blush and you'll tell me something dry
I'll want you to wrap me in your arms,
To feel your breath on my neck again.

"I'm sorry. Take care of yourself, Cailey."

It's placed squarely in the upper corner.
I'll send you away,
And wash my hands of you forever.

You'll tell quite a tale-
And it may be honest,
But it's certainly not true.

My gold hair still reflects the sunshine
Back to your wet but empty eyes
That tell your earnest, bumbling mind
To take the straight and narrow path
Directly towards oblivion.

Camel Blues protruding from the right hip pocket
Of your too-tight skinny jeans
Containing the gracefullest legs
You're a tower.

You've left your mark on me
In more ways than one
And I fell to pieces, leaking colors through the cracks
Like none I'd known were there

But you aren't going to pull me close again
Or run your knowledgeable hands
Over my worn-cotton white skin,

Alas.

These pale little fingers
Are lavishly decorated:

Dried clay soil
Around and under jagged stubby nails
A pink crescent-moon scar
On the third one's second knuckle,
India Ink dried in drips and streaks
Deep whorl prints
Like no others- snowflakes, IDs

And slow to heal,
Painful to the touch,
These omnipresent little slashes,
Paper Cuts.

Snowed in,
We prepare peasant food:

Simmering onions
Then broth
Base for boiling fish stew
Cooled in the snowbank beside the brown ale
The pineapple pies
and the venison steak.

Proclaimed the paper-cutout placard on the table:
Clothless gray plastic-surfaced round.

In this immense faux-stone (concrete?)
Faux-English country house
We escape to the top of the stairs:
The no admittance sign is no deterrent.

The iridescence of your skirt is captivating
But all I can remember is living in a castle like this one
When I was a little blonde nothing
And feeling the way I do now,
As if there's been no transformation, no progress.

Maybe there has,
And this band must be pretty great
To keep this many old white people dancing so enthusiastically
For such a long time:
An ancient one with a Christmas-themed vest
Foxtrots with a once-lady in a polyester pants suit
Thin hair dyed roofing-tar black, suede kitten heels clacking.

The world's a **** strange place.
Even if we feel like we aren't quite awake,
We'll adjust our stockings and fill our plates
With that mystery-shrouded gelatinous citrus dessert
And our plastic cups with apple cider, light beer, 7-Up.

Endure a few more minutes on this rented dancefloor with me
Because they're playing love shack
And who doesn't smile at the mere notion of the B-52s?

Hearing the high-register flute tones
Drift up from downstairs-
Not sweetly like the angels' song
Or gently like a bird's:
But forcefully, repetitively,
Like the sound of a car's anti-theft alarm,
Has slowly heated my mind past its boiling point.

And now the walls are closing in
And the water's running black from the tap
And it's dripping down your cheeks
Flowing like your endless grievous tears.

We can't accomplish anything we set out to do
You call me and we babble for an hour
About nothing.
You'd had something important to say
But it never came out-
Your plans like the half-formed sneeze that looms imminent
And then inexplicably disappears forever.

This morning drenched our little world-
Fogged our vision driving in,
As the wind blew the water sideways in sheets
Which threw themselves against the windshield:
THWAPP
THWAPP
THWAPP.

The wipers fought a losing battle:
FSH-erhh
FSH-erhh
FSH-erhh.

Stepping out the driver's side door
Was like having walked the plank
And reached the end,
Emerging into nothingness,
And then endless water.

Wool socks were damp for hours
Souls were exhilarated, voices tittering ironically joyful grousings.
"Can you believe this weather?"

How can one as pure as you
Endure these times, emerge unmarked?

You seem to live apart
From all this pain and loss
Evil and filth

I can't extricate myself
From this quicksand-sin

And none have trod upon your heart;
It's still full of helium and joy
And sweetness and light
And love- for me!

Laying here with you
Under the paper-thin gossamer canopy
(Providing protection from nasty dreams)
I think how much I love you,
Love us.

I roll over and kiss your clean white linen shoulder
You giggle
I breathe in your sweet smell.

The tentative contact of your full smooth lips,
Your quick shallow breaths and cold white hands
Are more wonderful than the touch of any other.

The candle burning softly on the nightstand
And the musicians singing from the corner of the room
Bring us to a better place;
We're all we need.

Things aren't what they were
And they won't be.

We are the ever-living ghost of what once was
And we're everything
But we aren't anything.

Your hard square hands
Won't move over that scrawny frame
With its gently rounded hips and healthy little *******
Again.

And the cold little chapped pink lips
Won't brush yours: warm, soft, full.

Still, something from you pulls me
The way the moon tugs on the sea
And I know you know how much we took for granted.

Onward, now,
To new,
Better?
Other
Things.

Such solidarity we created
On the hilltop with the cows

Discussing sassafras,
Our Chakras,
Summer-berry wine.

Per aspera ad astra
But without inhaling tar
We have come.

The cornbread with anise and wheat berries
Cruncy and sweet
Slathered with strawberry jam
Was such a luxurious meal
For us two tired wanderers.

We're left over from the '60s
Living in the past but in the moment
Listening to Mama Tried (well, she did!)
And crying over Wharf Rat
We model turtles, Celtic knots, a moose
Dream of yesterday and tomorrow
Say what we mean
Take a misguided turn driving home
And our minds meander to slumber and internal illusions.

You hold the short balsa match
Between your stubby pale fingers
The bitten-down nails painted black-cherry-hot-blood red.
And you tremble.

Strike it- sulfur's tangy odor permeates the air.

Your soul rattles like dead leaves
On the end of a long blight-stricken oak branch in November.

Skin, it hisses like firewood left out in the rain
And reddens like your cheeks did when your lips first touched his,
When you first saw his skin gleaming white
In the Autumn-chill  moonglow.

Now it blisters, white and swollen, tender, sore.
And you feel you've accomplished something, moved forward,
But there's a faint voice
Calling to you from the back of your consciousness
Telling you you've gone down the wrong road entirely.

You'll be wearing an old grey pea-coat,
Buttoned tighter than my grip on the wheel
On my way over,
My hands trembling
Like something small, trapped, scared-
As I was speeding off toward freedom, security.

Your scarf will keep your neck and chin
Protected from the damp cold night the color of slate.
And there'll be Johnny Cash playing:
And in the dim of yesterday
I can clearly see
That flesh and blood cried out to someone
As it does in me
And I'll take my place against the rail.

You'll sidle over to where I stand
But you won't stand too close.
You'll smell like moss and musk and sandalwood
And slowly you'll slide closer
A deliberate, serpentine motion.

Now.

Our hips touch.
You go red and my hands tingle
As your fingers glide into their place between mine,
Warp and weft.
I'd risk it all right now.

We've been driving for hours
And I'm hypnotized
By the endless white dashes
Separating lanes:
Hi-Reflection government-grade paint.

They rush by
And they're innumerable, extending endlessly in both directions
Each of them someone I've met and forgotten.

I become distraught
Thinking about all of the missed opportunities ,
Wasted words.

You tell me it's all in my head;
I'm being ridiculous
But I can't take it anymore.

So we stop at a diner.
The warm rolls,
Coffee: burnt and bitter,
Big plate of greasy meat and fries
Restore me to my humanity
And remind me that we're all we've got.

Your eyes
Are red and swollen
But still they're spectacularly lucid.

Your gentle little moon-white hands tremble
And clutch at your knees.

Your sweet, soft voice shakes
As you tell me what you've needed to
And what you've carried far too long.

The words had been heavy stones in your quiet body
But they flow out freely from you as water from Christ's punctured side
Become almost nothing
Dissipate like smoke.

You're freed from your burden
And we hold each other and sing
I've got a feeling
It's gonna be all *right.

When you get home,
You won't help me in the kitchen.

So you walk into the living room
And I get an idea.
I call your name
And you come back in and see me there,
Shirtless, stirring cookie dough.

We end up on that putrid brown sofa
Your arms around my waist
You kiss me until my lips are raw, and...
After, we lay there with your arms around me
And you fall asleep, your breath heavy and slow.
You're dreaming now,
About that pretty girl from San Fransisco.

I roll over and it wakes you up
And we don't know what time it is
But I don't care if we're late
Because you're warm and you smell so sweet
And you kissed my forehead like you did the first time.

I know you wouldn't stop me if I tried to leave
And it kills me
But I'll always be here with you
Even though I know I should be with him
With his camel blues and his tight jeans and his argyle sweater.

He's perfect and
We both know it.
You're nothing and I love you.

Your visage
Is so refreshing
Like a long cool drink of sencha
With honey in it

On the last day of July
When the weather feels like Hell
And to hear your voice
Was what I needed most just then.

Hold me in your arms:
Long, slender, pale.

Brush your lips on mine:
Rosy, warm, gentle.

Kiss me hard, now:
Passionate, forceful, deliberate.

And in the rain, my hair curls
So you run your fingers through it
And I can't love you any more than I do now.

I've got my bare feet on the floor
And I'm running my toes through the high-pile plush
And it's making a noise like the ocean does
When it rolls over that pure white Key West sand
We laid on back when times were good.

We're listening to Fairport Convention
And you say something about Tam Lin
And I think about how you're like him:
Once I saw you as so noble, knightlike.

And now you've become this evil thing,
Stealing wealth and purity from high-class Christian girls
(Almost always blondes).

So I decide that when the faerie queen shows up
To pay her tithe to Satan
I'll break the clasp of my arms around your form
And abandon you to your well-deserved fate.

But then, grey elf,
Your dewy eyes catch mine
And in my weakness I know I'd hold you tight
In the face of Lucifer himself.

So I stay here with your fingers intertwined in mine
And our palms sweat in the heat of our stuffy living room(dying room?)
But we don't let go;
We wouldn't for anything in this world or Hell.

Trying to get through
This endless pile of papers,
I brew another *** of coffee,
Smoke another cigarette,
Think I might be dying (for good measure)
And close the door.

But all I can think about is you
Out there on the sofa
Under the yellow-and-white afghan
Shooting up and watching that old telenovela

So I give up.
And I grab us a couple of PBRs
And we lay there together,
Talking about your metaphysical journey.
I say something funny
And you go all red
And you hit me so hard
The wind all comes out of my chest.

I'm upstairs on the bed
Crying
And there's eyeliner down past my cheekbones.

And you come in
And you kiss my forehead
And I close my eyes
And I give in.

Waking up with your arm slung over my back
Incense on the table burning down to nothing
Like the remnants of my life,
I can't remember what made me love you.

You, my rough and rotten,
Are like coffee.
Coffee with skim milk in it, and sugar.

The anticipation is the best, the expected effects of your touch.
Then the heat. Too much.
After you're gone,
I wish you'd never been here. Such a sour aftertaste!

But later,
I stare into the bottom of my empty mug
Stained with the end of the morning's dregs
And look at my empty arms
And feel cold.

When the kettle screams,
I shrug.
Why *not?

I drive home, slowly.
The trees lining the road look the way I feel:
Ambivalent.

Some of the leaves are brilliant
Shining he way this amber ring does
And some have flat warm tones
Like the ochres the shaman, in his trance,
Brushed onto the walls
Building a miracle at Lascaux.

The dead ones
Lay still
Until a big rig barrels by
And they fly up in circles
And settle back where they began-
They're shiftless, no better than you or me.

So I'm cleaning up the dishes
From our dinner,
If you could call it that-
It was really just microwaved food,
Packaged carcinogenic frozen death.

And you storm into the kitchen,
Raving about something,
And you're bleeding,
And I'm screaming.

And I wake up on the couch
And realize that was never there
And you're sleeping next to me,
Unharmed.

I wake up with this pain in my head
One like you wouldn't believe.

I run water for the coffeepot
And I look in the other room
And you're passed out
And I just need to get away from here
I want to pack my old duffel
And get in the old Forester
And go back to him:
With his sanity and his steady job and his mossy eyes

And you get up
And amble in beside me
Wrap your arms around my neck
Kiss me with such disappointing abandon
And you could have knocked me over with a feather.

And I go upstairs,
Look in the mirror,
Cry tears of defeat, and put away my bags.
I hear you singing from the bottom of the stairs:
Hi ****** dee dee,
God ****!
The pirate's life for *me!

We're hedonists.
We lay here on this couch
All day and most of the night.

It's old, older than you and older than me
And it's got this awful floral-print cover
That's stained with coffee and wine and cigarette burns
And love and angst and grief.

And we put what we want in our bodies
And they grow flabby and pale
And our love never had a chance
So why won't it die?

And when I was too drunk to stand up anymore
You used to carry me up the stairs
To our big old bed with ratty sheets and mismatched pillows.
Tonight we stay on the couch;
We're both high on this cheap horrible ****.
I think it's laced with something, something bad.
And you won't carry me up the stairs
Because there's music on the ceiling
And it's got skinny black legs.

You were made for this life, my rough and rotten.
I could have been anything.
And you're a self-proclaimed anarchist.
I know you're nothing but a sloth.
But I love you more than words can say
And we lay here on the couch all night
And **** three times
And you tell me it doesn't get any better than this.

My dearest rough & rotten,
Are so full
So red
So very sweet.

Their warmth and yours
Is coursing through my veins
And the way you breathe
Is enough to knock me down.

But it doesn't need to;
I'm already here
Under your little scrappy form
Sinewy and poised, brimming with athleticism, masculinity.

This can't be right;
But I wouldn't want to live without this,
Without your hands,
Your pulse,
Your tongue,
Your Lips.

You recline, sublimely.

Kiss me hard.
Pull me down onto you,
Your soul and mine overflowing with desire
and the wanting comes in waves

And our heavy hot breathing steams up the glass and my mind.

You stand there
Making eyes at me
And I playfully choose to ignore you.

You cross your elbow through mine
And I look in the other direction, avoiding your gaze.

So your hand,
Blooms of the vine of creeping wisteria that is your arm-
Long, Resilient,
Slides around my hips,
Pulls me in nearer to your familiar form,
and takes root there.

Sitting here on his shoulders
Like a little child,

I can see over the heads of the crowd,
The hay bales and pumpkins,
And my troubles.

My spirit is lifted by this new and great height
And I am utterly free.

Hang loosely from your frame:
Long, lean, exquisite.

Holes in the knees
Match the holes in your heart
And in mine: bored through by those we meet
With the sweetest pain.

What do you keep in your pockets?
Portable property-do you value it as Mr. Jaggers's clerk did?

I know you have two faces, as did he.
In your castle you are serene, affectionate.
Here you have Wemmick's letter-box mouth
And reveal none of what you feel.

Brings a feeling of helplessness
And all of the leftover Christmas cookies
Are not satisfying but cloying.

Our bovine grazing leaves the kitchen ravaged
And our stomachs are overfull
But still we eat,
Finding ourselves only hungrier.

Our minds, our senses, need refreshment
And our desperate starving spirits moan ceaselessly.

Our skin is pallid
And desiccated by the artificial heat.
The sun hasn't shone for days.

To where may we escape?

Yours is extraordinarily beautiful.
It's rhythmic like the movement of the sea and
Reassures me of the endlessness,
The ceaseless calm of the world we've created
Here in our embrace.

Mine is far more painful
And my exhausted lungs sound
Like the wheezing old engine of our '83 Chevy
As I lay here
Surrounded by electronics meant to preserve my life
That will only destroy my spirit.

Tonight envelops your spindly frame.

Dark forest-green wool,
It is softer than velvet
Against your moon-pale skin.

Such a merry garment
Welcomes the onset of
Autumn, a most idyllic season.

So **** the stars.

Your form too elegant for words,
You are draped across the floor, reposing

And she springs upon you,
Leopardlike,
As she did before
And she robs you of your very essence.

I, the observer,
Am stricken with immeasurable pain on your behalf
And I shed tears of desperation
Which form a puddle at your feet.

The carpeting under your reclining form
Is stained with ink from an old-style fountain pen
And the prints of innumerable tired aching feet
Encased in sullied boots.

You are marred by nothing,
Your kiss cool and fresh, sweet, floral, clean.

Your small white hands
Explore a thread
That has escaped from a pair of old jeans-
Worn every day, rarely washed,
the pockets full of coins, lint, gum wrappers.

I take a drag off this cigarette
And contemplate how close I am in identity with it,
How I fit the mold perfectly and take no chances.
I am a case study in consistency

And you,
Dearest,
Are like nothing else
And second to none.

I am the sunny green basil
You grew in the terra cotta tureen by the north-facing window.

I started off light, sweet, tangy, refreshing.

You left me alone for too long.

And now I am bitter,
Biting,
Useless.

If you had tended me with care,
I would be always at your service,
Adding flavor to your sauces and meats.


But you neglected me,
And you've put me in your compost bin
With potato skins and banana peels
And I am good for nothing, no one.

This place
Is where I keep all of my worldly possessions
But it cannot be my home-

My heart is not here.

Where there is joy,
There resides my spirit.

Where there is harmony,
There is my joy.

Where there is love,
There you are.

Wrap me in your arms,
Caress my lips with yours,
Make me yours,
To have and to hold.

Take Me Home.

You and I knew it wasn't right.

But once the idea had been discussed,
It would not leave our minds.

We opened the door
And it wouldn't close again.

Afterwards, you pushed it shut with all your weight,
Sweating and out of breath.

We'd won,
But barely.

And the dust from that room
Hung in our air
And the light filtered through it,
Making it painfully visible,
Interminably present.

Can we open the window and let it out into the air,
Never to re-enter our sight?

I hope so.

Standing there
In that light,
You looked so good

Stirring the meats and sauces
In the pans on my stove
That I called your name,

And when you turned around,
And you wrapped your arms around my waist
And slid your hands down to my hips
And pulled me in tight

And our lips met,
Softly at first,
Then again:
Passionately,

I knew we were entering uncharted territory,
And it was beautiful.

Line the edge of the shelf
And fill a bowl at one end of its dusty surface,
Worn old hickory supporting
Ashen grey pottery

The way my love for you
Fills my heart and overflows,
Pouring into my worn old mind and body.

Is the world through your clouded eyes.
there's no way to grow that don't hurt,

So let the light shine through,
Cleanly,
As it did in the beginning,

And love me.

The oil on your neck
Has a smell so earthy, heavy, dark.

Its small white flowers
Are like the quiet words
That you pour out

From your sugar-sweet mouth,
Your lips warm, moist,
Like a velvet rose,

And your lily-of-the-valley hands
Reach out like stems, calling to the sun.

Declared the red digital clock, forcefully.
My left hand tingled
In the place where your right belongs.

My body felt as half-baked dough
In an oven of linen:
My feet and ankles embraced by old wool socks,
Slate grey and olive green,
Bare arms and shoulders,
A black chemise is all the rest.

My dreams are full of you,
With your long-limbed frame
And Gaia's mossy eyes,
Your gentle voice and
The sweetness of your fleeting touch.

Lying here,
Now nothing more than a fragment of terrycloth
Faded from red to pink

You are something much more.
You know the essence of athleticism,
Of strength, stamina, courage.

You relish every drop of perspiration,
Rhythmic breath of runners is sweet music,
And now you have been cast aside,
Reposing gently on the side table,
Alone but for the stopwatch.

Is clean, and laden with the smells of Autumn
So invigorating and more apt to inspire amorous emotion
Than those of spring.

Crisp coldness calls to mind
Time spent as children
Piling the leaves and leaping into them-
Such fun, until a slug is discovered in her shoe:
"eeeeee!"
His reaction: gleeful chortling

Walking into the dark to meet you,
I feel no apprehension
Because I know my heart to be full of holes
Into which (or out) may walk anyone who may so desire,
And this feeling of openness is not frightening but refreshing.

My devotion to you overflows from its small container
And fills my body: such delightful pain!

Time has worn my body down
To less than it was before,
But it has done the same for my mind,
And I am wiser than you will ever be.

I have seen all you have done
And I know the consequences.

Youth breeds idleness and stupidity;
With great age like mine comes not defeat but victory.

You cast me aside as a wrinkled old nothing
But I know you are hollow at your core,
While I am stone-solid.

Here
In the spaces between the trees
Bands of light squeeze through and
Illuminate your mossy eyes,
Making them shine like diamonds.

Walk with me.
If we don't find our way back
To where we started,
We'll discover somewhere new.

Share with me a conversation
So much like our physical journey:
Exciting, refreshing,
Exploratory,
Slightly perilous.

Then, at last,
Share with me
An embrace warm and true
Of the kind that warm to the core,
That draw contented sighs,
Gentle smiles.

I have for you such quiet adoration,
Silent longing that would bleed me dry if I let it.
But I do not;
Instead I make it fortify my soul.

See me as the Sweet Thing I want to be to you.

Hold me close so I can hear your heart;
Comfort me.

Let my supernova eyes glide over your form,
and your earthy ones survey mine.

Kiss me like you mean it.

Walking through the parking lot,
I feel my hair starting to curl

And it's like when I feel my core
Heat and warm my all,
Making my cheeks tingle and redden

When I think about you:
How I wish you'd slip your arms around my waist,
Your hands pressing on the small of my back,
Pulling me in close enough to feel your breath on my neck
Refreshing me and rejuvenating my soul
Like a breeze in a room full of stagnant air,

Pull back just an inch,
Look into my face and my soul,
Close your mossy eyes,
and kiss me.

The raindrops are small,
cold,
piercing like shrapnel-

I am caught in the crossfire of the war in my mind.

Home again,
I feel as a stranger to the indoors,
The smell of clean clothes,
Imprisonment under electric lighting.

Now I am curly-headed,
Smoke-scented,
Mud-sprinkled.

My hands feel as leathery as
The bulky Bean Boots I wear over my wool socks-
They have been marked by climbing ropes,
tree bark,
the handle of my guitar case.

I crave a return to the forest,
the trance-like feeling we all got from staring at the fire,
the dirt under my fingernails,
you in your sleeping bag (maximum capacity: three persons)
the children on my lap and at my feet.