My voice
enters
the air
as I speak
to her,
delves
there
in purrs
of wind.

If I am
silent,
and she
is sleeping,
the air
stutters
a little
as it speaks
its own name.

In the
language
that sails
the lung,
it whispers
about her.

In the
night,
the air
grasps
at cigarette
smoke
with
fingers
small
as a
hush.

It lurches
toward
the branch
of moon.
My father's
grave
is hidden
in the air.

The air,
the air
hangs
between us,
lithe and
endless,
almost
invisible.

When she
pauses for
breath,
the air
offers itself
in sweet
bursts.

In mist
and fog,
it learns
to kiss.

When she
speaks,
the air
is filigree,
like the
small laces
of a tree
in bloom.

Live off of last night’s
sugar rush street lights

ignore this hysteric
canary—the enemy

and tune in the tin-foiled
rabbit-eared radio—

we’ll dance to the broadcast
of our last night
on this Earth.

Another glass
(bodega red)—
Christmas lights,
all buzz-eyed bokeh—

I want you close,
my nervous tic,
my lunar love,
Cassiopeia—

this holiday I
said too much,
I made a fool of
both of us—

but I don’t drink
to disappear—
I drink to kiss
my fearless lover.

Two boys on
the bridge,

each, the other,
his;

they gaze across
the bay—

they could be there
one day.

In the crazy busyness of the day
where electric sounds suffuse,
even a little chat is often a freeway
of words and noise.

And in the midst, he tells me
“Just be yourself.”
There I am
in the small space of silence
being undone
with nothing to say
while I wonder
what self.

A friend tells me they’re getting a divorce.
The doctor says the tests are positive.
I watch: the surge of floods taking homes and lives
or images of smoke and debris right after a bombing.
After a real serious play or movie.
In the waiting room after I hear she is going to die.

In those lonely tiny spaces
of darkness
I cannot speak.

In those aftermath moments
I am silenced.

How do I react
to being out of control
or make these things normal
or fit them into my routine ways of being me?

Silence asserts itself
like a wild animal
I cannot tame.

At these intervals
of being powerless
I hope I do not miss the chance
to humbly bow
in silence
and embrace my humanity
and smallness
in the cosmos
where it is utterly trivial
to just be my self.