you rise before the morning does, watch the black
sky go gray through the shower curtain
lacy shadows cast on summer-night skin
not ready to awaken, blue eyes half-mast to
squint away the fluorescent intrusion as your
mother butters toast for you that you leave behind,
your stomach sleeping too.

yawning, you thank god that the possums are
exercising better judgment as you hold
the wheel at eight and four, shake your knees
at every stoplight, sing billy joel top-volume
to stay alert while the clouds go pink and gold.

you join the real-world almost right away,
asleep before you hit the tracks at westport
tickets tickets tickets grabs your ear, but only just.

your coffee cools in its thermos, forgotten in the
new haven line haze, your nerves all perked up
fighting with the fog between your ears. your nerves
all perked up. your nerves all perked up. you try to
kick the fog to no avail. you all but sleepwalk
down the platform, you barely watch the gap.

hey, wouldn’t it be crazy if he came your dream-voice
whispers to your conscious yes it would be crazy your
conscious chuckles at the thought.

you trip on the overweight businessman’s pennyloafer
and you think how much you need to *** and you toss
your cold bagel in the all aboard trash can and you
think about how crazy you would be to hope to see him
and you hope your backpack isn’t slowing traffic too
much and your nerves all perked up your nerves all
perked up and you shake away the fog one last time and
you get to the end of the long hot platform and you—

hey wouldn’t it be crazy if but yes he’s
there and yes you
don’t know
what to
say but
yes your
eyes wide yes
mouth open
yes you don’t
know what
to say but

*hi,
I love you,
yes

When you get tired
Of roaming the earth,
Will my name be on your lips
As you recall the sweet memory
Of strawberry wine and rose hips
Perfume in the air
You breathed under the stars with me
On the night you told me you loved me,
You wanted to grow old with me
But first you had to go see the world?

Have you seen enough?
Climbed enough mountains?
Sailed enough seas?
*Are you ready to come home to me?

He texted me seven minutes after I had decided
to start calling my sexuality Coyote, because it was growling
half-way through a book about ***** feminists
and the hair on his chest had undomesticated me in a way that
the thinking part of my brain didn't even believe was possible
but reliving the sound of his laughter as he whispered in my ear
to climb on top made me travel through space and time
to kiss Lilith on the mouth and take Medusa home for one night.

i will wade out
                        till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
                                       Alive
                                                 with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
                                       in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
                                            Will i complete the mystery
                                            of my flesh
I will rise
               After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
             And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

"Do you know why i pulled you over?"
" Suspect it was because of my speed."
" Did you realize how fast you where going?"
" Nearly 75 miles per hour, you see, I noticed that concrete median just ahead and realized I have been suicidal lately, so I unbuckled my seat belt, glanced at my blinking airbag light letting me know this would be a for sure thing and gunned it. Then of course you turned on your lights, and i knew there's too big of a chance of making it to the hospital alive with a cop this close by when it happens so i decided to pull over. I thought may be suicide by cop would work, but i don't have a gun with me, so the worst that would happen is i would get tazed, and you'd have to do paperwork, so i abandoned that about the time you reached my bumper. To tell you the truth, you, and solely you, for multiple reasons, may have been the only thing that kept me from killing myself tonight. Now that I've had some time to think about it, I don't think dieing would help either, wouldn't help me or anyone else, so i think the best thing would be to just go home and sleep it off, sleep until i start to feel something again."
".......Life gets hard sometimes and you can't let it get a hold of you like that. Where do you live?"
"about ten blocks up"
"I'll let you go, but I'm going to follow you there just to make sure you get home in one piece, and in the morning check yourself into somewhere."
"I'll make sure to."

How do we measure distance--
we both live from point to point
and seas in between
ships sail on the ocean floor
and we only have strong longings
that stars will move in favor of us.
We can only close our eyes
and hail
Indeed, we both love.
And one day
when we're asleep or awake from a dream
our bodies will change positions
across one path.

All armies are the same
Publicity is fame
Artillery makes the same old noise
Valor is an attribute of boys
Old soldiers all have tired eyes
All soldiers hear the same old lies
Dead bodies always have drawn flies

veracity,
faulty.
it's hard to tell who your friends are
at the bottom of the ocean.
sand grains. black, white.
everyone is blind.
jellyfish are wolfish
at the bottom of the ocean.
spoken sounds sting.
starfish are spearfish-
one might hear a feather drop,
one might hear a pin drop,
noiseless word string.
beneath;
sky, rise up.
the bottle forlorn.
willowy hair will stay strong,
while the luminous
go on stillborn.

It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.