Dear Katie,
                  please pardon the confusion--
mine,
yours,
the weather's.

In group they wanted us to talk about
someone who really loves us.
I started to laugh
                            like slipping on ice
I couldn't wave myself fast enough
                            to save a fall
and the laughing became an ugly cry.

They like us to do things with our hands here
so I made
                a love potion for you.
Yeah, too late. like checking a smoking oven.
But,
       I can still portion by intuition
like how much to kiss you in the morning.

I used
a pinch of rust from a love lock
the memory of five black tulips
and 1 tsp essence of caramel fudge ice cream--
       Jeff Buckley ballads to taste
        baked at 350 until the moon turns silver like your poetry.

Gosh Katie,
                   they took away my books,
said I needed to engage with others.
I went back to group today and said, whoa, back up--
let's do that thing
                              from yesterday.
I pulled my **** together this time, not like before,
and I said,
                Katie mon amour
                 Katie je t'aime je t'aime, je t'aime.
This one ***** goes, you're not French,
you're not even Canadian you ******* freak

But she never stumbled drunk up the stairs with you,
poetry ringing in our ears and the summer night on our skin.
More to be pitied than scorned,
                                                    I can hear you say.
Anyway,
              love ya girl
Katie mon amour,
              Our Lady of Tulips and the Silver Moon.

When a detective falls in love, he does not know who to bill for expenses--
everything is up in the air.

At a mixer for suspects, he invites me to dance via loudspeaker.
Radiant in my white dress, I resemble a snowy owl
even down to my carefully bandaged hand which he takes without hesitation.
I whisper in his ear:

I am Leon Czolgosz.
Your heart is the President of the United States of America.
We are dancing in Buffalo, city by the Niagara.
My detective, of course, falls hard.

The next time we meet, I wait for him in the bullpen at the police station.
They know him there.
They hire cellists.
He confesses his deepest fantasy to me:

I want to speak words of love to you
via telephone
with our hands naked and separated only by the safety glass.
I want the call recorded
and broadcast to wild lovers around the globe.

Shortly after, we are married. I wear my favorite bearskin robe.
My small black cubs frolic nearby,
climbing the pews and then tumbling gaily down again.
My detective is resplendent in his tuxedo.
The hired band plays Funiculi Funicula.
I snarl when my detective gets too close to the cubs, and this inflames him.

At last, we lie in bed together, like busy machines come to rest.
I am wearing nothing but the revolver-shaped earrings he has given me.
My detective wears a felt fedora
and a look of smug adoration like a daredevil over the falls in a barrel.
I am The Queen of the Mist,
suspected in various thieveries, check kiting, and jaywalking.

Our love is an aviary
where birds wheel above the thundering water like intelligent confetti.
Look in your mailbox, I tell my detective.
I have left you a valentine and an Easter egg.
He asks if, after all, I am his mystery client.
I enter a plea of innocent.
My love is happy now, laughing.

A priest arrived by ambulance
to bless our sudden kiss

A doctor brought his bag but cannot
treat such things as this

My jewelry is just colored rocks
like pretty polished hollyhocks
in silver settings gone to curls
the same as any other girl's

but I could be your only love.

A flautist played our melody
in notes so fine and clear

That summer brought her midnights close
so that the moon could hear

the notes, the song so marvelous
the player played so long for us
the priest laid down his holy flask
the doctor blushed before he asked

if I could be your only love.

An urchin took a photograph
of you in uniform

You gave me spice and chocolates
to keep my fever warm

and lucky is the lucky bird
who calls and calls a wafting word
In this peculiar pregnant dawn
his curious and constant song

that I could be your only love.

I feel forsaken
like a rolled newspaper in the rain.

Is that You? in the window box?
Is that You? magnificent in a woken engine?

I don't mean to be sullen,
a crushed flower with a brave yellow bloom--

I'm a vine growing in through the window
of your abandoned holy room.

Oh honey. My fingers flat upon
your smooth chest made of smoke,

I am rain falling ever further from her cloud.
Call me back---use your voice of *****-shaped leaves.

I will come, across the lawns and waters
to kneel at your feet
and sing.