dusk settles on us
in envy as our kisses
turn our hearts into dawn

i know this morning, it's
sleepy birth and noisy birds
never the same as the last

i decipher your skin and eyes
slowly, their secrets ebb
to the surface and ripple

the flower that is your lips and
tongue blooms in my mouth
and sweetens the harshness that
is my dwelling, was

last sunlight is spent on you,
reveals to me that you are
one of heaven's permanent residents

they’re made of fleshy water, i could put my hand right through them
they’re not you. you make everything a shadow of itself.
i talk to them as if i care, carry out their light, wet business out of duty
longing to return to the land of your body, words, breaths

when i find you again, each night, i am enraptured by your words,
how your flesh stops my hand like a tree limb against a stone wall
it lays there, listening to your stories piqued by small laughter,
quietly growing over days, until the stone and fiber interlock

until  they forget about where they met, first touched, and shared.

the cat silences with a scritch under the chin,
the basement is organized in bins
the **** garden mocks my back
the inbox smugly holds its stacks

each moment a jump from clockface
slash to slash

wife lays in the afterglow, flies buzz two and fro, night stages house creaking, shingle colors leaking, dishes sit sloppily in the sink,

the ticking drives me to tears

the sensual love found at night dissipated
at dawn.

the adoring love uncovered in the day was
swallowed by dusk.

i strung a wire between the sun & moon and plucked it into tune

and hung from it grotesque flowers that
withered too soon.

9/6/18


the exact parking spot eludes me no matter how many times i visit
i pretend it doesn’t irk me but my mind won’t let me off that easily.
everything else is clear:
the fog that emerged at sunrise and sat worriedly embracing the car,
the lone sailboat quietly smacking its lips, waiting for the carcass,
the low gray ceiling stealing all
promise of a sunny day,
the frustration of knife cuts
that coagulated & a blocked tail pipe that failed to keep its promise
i walked into the hospital like someone entering a cafe for their coffee and found himself in a dream of line drips, blood draws and an interview
that had no correct answers

You didn’t ask, but:
what animates others is unfathomable.

i am fatigued by too many questions.
why people go to work or art museums, where all of these drivers go, why do they smile or cry, why they put one foot in front of the other.

my mind wanders to theology & philosophy & bathroom graffiti.

sandwiched between all of these words of wisdom is the reassurance that we are insects on a rock traveling through a beautiful, cold vastness that is indifferent to whether we live or die.

your attention has wandered. perhaps you are thinking about something funny you saw in a bathroom in Utica or a striated purple stone you found on that beach in Sanibel.

and i wish in an embarrassingly desperate way i could crawl under those blankets you and others wrap yourselves.