~
When Pharaoh
checked out at the Red Sea,
odd circumstance made a grab for his vacant scepter,

and kingdom collided
with plague to paint a mural
on the palace wall (or maybe, it was the hotel lobby),

of a dreamer's garden,
his wife in veils, her dance a cordial
invitation to a great many unmentionable things,

the feral sky had blown
itself out, and in muted candle
nightshade, the mistress of war disembarked,

and so somewhere
in those upper rooms, ruler
and consort, hearing the sound of running water,

mystified their carnal
senses by infusing themselves
with a little vigorous morphine of the soul
~

There is a cough and a bark
& then a roar, and suddenly
the green night is singing.

A light rain hangs like a history,
the silver toad bus squirms stop to stop,
the street racers flick rubber kisses.

In the opposite building, a woman
undresses before watching a movie:
the rain begins to flop and hook.

A bicyclist shines and streaks down
the sleekish funnel. The moon is forgetful.
A love story is playing out on the sidewalk.

The green night cascades smokes
with sharking clouds that drift north
into Maryland with their lethal line.

The cat sleeps on my great-aunt's rug:
I am alone in this quiet. Something is dying.
I watch the rain dry on the summer road.

i'll always love you like you were the fullest sunlight laid gently on the dark bruises of december. my crystalline hands are bound to start wildfires in your name. and finally when the world burns down, i'll mark your spine with these lips made of sunburnt flowers. in the ruins of it all, you still have all my misguided kisses — all my unbidden words. i'll always love you, until azaleas grow on the softest spots, in the mundane collision of our bodies. i'll always love you, until my ribs fall apart to your autumn eyes, like a babylonian temple that has seen the miracles of god. i'll always love you — in state of both madness and kalopsia. in the explosion and rebirth of the stars. i'll always love you — this is my bareness in the most prosaical state. this is my constant, darling — this is my truth.

Your poems no longer talked about the way you fell so gracefully in the cracks of my collar bones — fragile, hollowed as the echoes of a priestess’ word — my chest is a shrine built just for you. Your poems no longer talked about the way I kissed the sunset lights, laid softly on your shoulders; this love has descended from the gods. Your poems no longer talked about pressed roses — dead and desperate on top of love letters, god was I high on loving you.

Your poems no longer talked about these. They no longer talked about us darling; they no longer talked about my rosewood scent on your pillow the first time we made love. They no longer talked about how we chased the sun and descended back to the ground, like cosmic dusts losing themselves.

Your poems no longer talked about us — we are dead. dead. dead — a forgotten language and its metaphors. We are walking on top of a new city, a pile of words buried underneath. Our love buried underneath. You are walking on top of a new city, all new words and a slim fit suit.

I am quiet as a Syrian poem. I am buried underneath.

My words don't know peace. They are the nightshades all over a hunting ground. They are the bending of sunlight as it slices itself against headstones. They are a patchwork of all the cruel things I've done with my hands. They are the birds of prey, circling overhead a wounded doe. My words don't know peace — they are made of every last bit of my chaos, barely contained by my fingers. They are made of every last bit of my violence made to look nonthreatening. Gentle as the wind and tame as a field of roses — the thorns, left buried in your back.

Still, a refugee trembles, hides beneath her battle scars. She recognizes the wars waged in her skin — the cruel way they stay long after the last battle — the cruel way they don't know peace.

It's a lost planet;
all jacked up on
caffeine and pride.
The slime from the snail
tastes like jasmine
and tangerines.
When I think about
death, I picture all
the billions of
people who have already
died.

Death is
just as known
as life.
Death is not a mystery
to the dead.
It's as common as
paper clips, and
grasshoppers.
My Mom and Dad
know.
Bukowski and James
Dean know.
All three stooges
and Superman
dine for eternity
with the worms and
the rot.

This mindset steals the
fear from the ferryman,
and the river Styx becomes
a placid stream.