how many stories can we pour into our
summertime beer steins
how much before the foam spills over
into real-time

there’s no numerical answer to that, let’s state plainly
bubbles geometrically become one another, shrink
and multiply and turn amber-red in the august nightshade

and dogs skitter under basketball hoops, couples play in shadow
fathers sneeze and industry marches on
under our noses, outside our windows, between our ribs
how many stories can we swallow
before we’re drunk on the skyline and the view to the next

does it matter?

that one brew is for sale only in midtown
and sometime I might go back, drink it with you not there
watch the spinning hexagon floor tiles
and I’ll write you that I had it, and it was
all right

how many stories can we fit into the new year
stuff into the hamper, hide in creases of the couch
like quarters
like hands on knees, yours, yeah, the soft elegant spider-hands I
wanted on my knees since the first day—
two perfect hands

how many stories can we write on our palms
as reminders, how many can we fit between appointments

the ending’s not so important, is it—
bubbles join together, multiply, change shape
go hexagonal, spin
touch, remember, forget, divide
always even numbers

just shy of eleven
shy of prime

but amber-red in august
like that first time

the gold lion cub flanked by his father,
soft chest for shelter and memory, like I thought
you might remember me

what is there, though
what ever was
I clench my heartstrings without trying when you pass
raise my voice so you can hear all the fun
I’m having without you because I miss you
I miss you I miss you but that’s just it

why

this cerebral museum I’ve kept of you, you
so brilliantly and always tear it up
remind me why I shrugged away your
irish spring forearm every time

why do fools fall in love and why does
non-love stick so stubbornly to the teeth
why are you still here
why were you ever
a forearm pushed away is all you were even
on the best days but

like you know my clenched heart aches to remember
you as you should have been
always the bull in the china shop,
always the beggar for a sad farewell,
you shred me

and then I mend, and forget
again, and again
just like I did when you were here
why are you still here

if I could just stay torn and the
rose-gold camera lens could take itself for what it is
allow a bit of real into my memory of you
your freckles
your venom and too-tight grip

I could grow a mane and lose the shadow of the lion's chest
rest my head on something better
feel the sweet African sun before extinction comes

you are shattered, so it goes
and the imperceptible adhesive from the
fallen framed photograph you
somethinged her—she was not in it—
she is on your hands
not in them

so it goes, the candle on the sill unlit
unstill
until
wax burns
fire goes
you are
never start
something
will end
never light a fire
never have a friend—

time makes a stopwatch of you
a spasm
a podium of her, all your something
stuck to your fingers

tiger eyes searching yours hey
hey
I love you—
it’s the twelfth time and you’re barely awake
I love you too, you hardly say, like a robot to his jawline

hands on yours those hands you loved
they’re too hot now oh
oh, my god just let me make my breakfast
I don’t have time right now

hey
hey
hey (you don't have the time)
hey
I love you, he doesn’t ******* stop saying

you miss him when you slam the door

sumatra drips like crocodile tears in
the four-cup *** just half-emptied by nine
big and bought on faith in un-lone-li-ness
drainpipes eroding from her miscalculation

swallowed black and quickly
her white teeth uncompromised so far
her step-by-step morning still clockwork

but when she was eighteen she watched the
cream like squid ink clouds turn it
the color of his summer skin
drinking up the baby hangovers to the
last drop

hello, sweetheart in the lightbluejeans, what’re you thinking of
whatever happened to gumdrops and thankyou notes and long skirts that say
‘I am a forward thinking woman’

how your eyebrows in self-photograph are the spitting image of your grandma’s
and how she never had a funeral and neither
did
you,
but you’re
****-sure not living anymore, not since the world-bruise and the ankle-bruise
and your protruding soul-bruise (your soul is in your hip bones; it bangs on the doorframe
when you walk into the kitchen every time)

you don’t remember the year but there was one
when you knew it all would be beautiful
for you
how could it not

back up to that long-gone January. that evening in your best friend’s car
when you choked on the phone that it physically hurt to listen to the sharp voices
no matter what, but especially when you knew what you knew and you *******
knew what you knew and you couldn’t
forget
not that January

not that May, when you told him you’d decided to be better
not that December, when you told somebody else
not ever—you were better but you wouldn’t forget
not ever

you set your course on what you didn’t know—what you didn’t know
would never, never hurt you, and

your best friend said go. he said do what you love he said
no one loved like you and you had
a smile and a way with words and the world deserved you and your
big, big love
you were full of love
you were love

and then he left—your big love wasn’t the kind he needed and you survived,
but a little less wholeheartedly because you were missing a little bit of it
and you saw that sharing the whole thing was
what everyone said it was
after all

you were a little smaller the next time when
somebody else told you what you were—beautiful and big and
worthwhile—so many times that you said what the hell and you
kissed him
and he took that kiss and turned it into red
red
red wine
and you had no heart to tell him you preferred white; he had you already
you had him already
and no one would go un-
bloodied

and what do you love? your best friend that day
assumed you had an answer—so did you
but what the hell was it,
you ask through the *****-fog
what do you love?
do you?

and now
what’re you thinking of, honey
how the next one and the next and the sunglasses future
is cracking summer ice, not stone, and you’ll
kiss but not say
iloveyou
it will be misty and gray for you
you’ll plan on only what you know in sweatshirts and quilts
and you’ll shut the shades

and even this January
not forget

not since the world-bruise
and your own

Growing up in Poughkeepsie, the
barbells of unfaith always shook her
wrists when she lifted "I
will be gone from here soon enough"
over her shoulders. "I will love
like crazy."

Grown-up in the city, she
swallows hard in the marble mirror
and thinks "Maybe today
will be the day," but
it never is, and she ignores
the petulant inside voice saying
"Unfaith is unfaith but
so is dead-eyed
companionship, so unclench
your fists"--she hasn't yet.