Sixty-three stories above Surfer’s Paradise, AU
my glass is touched by alcohol for the first time
just as the sun smooths away into a hovering night.
At seventeen, my hand is forced up
by a tongue curiouser and curiouser,
and by *****’s Don’t be a *****
from behind the kitchen island.

Not much stays:
the bite of raspberry *****,
chocolate-chip mint ice cream,
a shower turned hot, then cold.

***** wakes me with a kick
Put some pants on
and we walk the boardwalk at dawn
just to feel things, he says.

The city wakes, yawning, stretching
with the tide rolling ever-in
to wash away yesterday’s footprints,
and ahead, a busker opens for the day,
finger pickin as if inviting
my soles to dance
with the ocean, and sink between its hands.

Orion has my eyes.
or rather, his belt
does (like
        what happens when you
        cross your eyes in the mirror
        and two becomes four
        becomes three if you strain
        just enough)
and maybe that’s narcissistic of me
but our first kiss let me see
your eyes instead.

As if the geysers
on Enceladus
are whispering
snowfall in my ear
I can hear the morning
rustling of my blood
and yours.

Our hands will build
the other with smooth stones
while Orion breathes above.

I hope you will consider
this letter, this thousandth
I’ve written
but the first sent to you,
as an old friend, as a joy,
as an outpouring of my affection.
I trust in a warm reception;
this has lain in my desk
for years, but it speaks
for itself and needs no comment;

What I’ve wanted to say
is that light is light;
the snowdrifts in the corner
of my building are poetry,
frozen and windblown,
and I see in them hope for spring;
I find myself longing
to meet you on a hillside
somewhere, green and fertile,
and we would embrace
as companions who never
lost the love of youth.

Rather, I’ve wanted to
write this openly
because with you
one must be open.

I am up and dressed,
live here lonesome
sometimes but in spirits
both hearty and good.

Write to me.
Faithfully yours.

When butterflies fall in love, do they feel humans in their stomach?

We sit on white plastic chairs
and watch the rain
wash these streets.
This is not a last meal;
let us origami our hands
and sing our departure songs
to the mirror glass of the sky.

I.
We ***** our tents on the hardpack
of the town’s airport,
rows of stakes and guidelines
like a fishing wharf in the tundra;
the mail plane comes at one,
an overfull vulture circling above
before looping North towards
the Gates of the Arctic for the approach run.
The landing is
       a front row rock concert
       where the bassist only knows one chord
       and the drummer is still setting up:
       the tone resonates in the ooze of our marrow;
that is to say, the landing is simple,
drifting over alpine fir and spruce tops
with ballet grace before cutting power
and slamming wheels to gravel.

II.
Yesterday’s rain feeds the Yukon today.
Its hands reach for a hard cloud ceiling
and its lows, its troughs call my name,
call my name, call my name,
endless waves in the river’s center,
arcing with storm energy
and grip strength.

III.
Other planes come, and leave,
and helicopters set down near us.
We play cards in their wind,
drink camp coffee that strains
through the teeth and plugs the gaps;
we watch and we wait
for seats that never come,
waiting to leave this airport runway,
waiting to fight the big fires.

IV.
We hear the boats before we see them,
curving around the clay banks
and we line our packs along
their aluminum walls.
We sit in plastic bags
to keep dry of river spray,
I hear my name again,
and watch another mail plane
take off. The hardpack vibrates
under the wheels, the engines scream
their one note show,
and the DC-3 sinks off the runway towards
the Yukon – and us – before catching itself,
then slowly, so slowly we can almost touch
the silver belly, it growls to the North
and loops South towards Fairbanks.