the clink of red mugs with handles missing and
twelve-dollar bubbles chasing
silly lilting words down your smile-throat
closing your smile-eyes longer than a blink


I watch your adam’s apple while you hum, you
turn up the music, hey—
remember when we hadn’t met

it looked a little like
how it’ll look when we are gone, hey—
remember how soon we’ll be gone


but I left my shaky voice-for-leaving at the
bottom of the glass, I
promised to speak steadfast-slow, I
touch your callused hand and

the next I know it’s morning and
the curtains don’t work and
I don’t mind your breath and

I haven’t let go

the gnarled elbows of
that oak, wizened with
snow-crusts of
one thousand pretty winters
held me that day fast

august-limbed, i
stumbled
through the lavender
flashes of a crystal
sharp voice in my ears

ringing bells and harebells
purple, gold, spreading
tripping heels
where am i
where am i

shh, said the branches
on my shoulder blades

he was far behind me
seething to himself and
he could not see to follow
but years later,
my oak protector reduced to
rings,

i feel him still angry,
red—I feel him
want to find me

sea’s quiet tonight, iris and vagabond gray
salt coarse in our hair we can see it in the
last pink light

count the bubbles in the wake
sprouting from thin air and
imaginary whale songs

they won’t find us in the stern let me
look at your hipbones—I won’t touch
not yet it’s too quiet tonight

there’s orion, and there’s cassiopeia
stars swimming white fish in our
***-eyes

gulls’ heads tucked under wings
in the corners—goodnight goodnight
little gulls, dreaming you’re doves

even sirens sleep this moon
soft voices slumberous
smoky, hey—let me look at you again

under the velvet dark, sea in sterling drops
on our lashes, let’s take a break from steering
let waves and mermaids take the wheel

watch watch watched
me, watch you, watched your skin turn young again
the night change to early stories lost in
fall grass, august-headed unseasonable warm
and orange, and rose, and daisy-chain

watch your skin turn young again
in summer, not summer anymore but still
something that looks
a little like summer
windows ajar and knuckles *****, cracked
and red with god and icy providence
your skin, so young so genius so young
again

I knew your laugh one april I’d
forgotten it by may and I
remembered
forgot
remembered in june
your pulse in my eardrums when I
found your chest here and when it was in the city
me, under a blanket
in a time warp
in the metropolitan area but not
close
enough

san francisco wouldn’t have me like boston
lusted after lusted after lustedafteryou
bridges held by strings lusted after you
tonight, and that night, and the halves of all of our nights
that I didn’t see, all those mouths
hands
blue-green beds lusted after you
a different end oh oh
oh, I saw it coming

that warm thing that salty distance thing, sometimes
that’s why you leave that’s why
anybody leaves
winemouths, unrecollections
mouths sour
oh that’s why honey
anybody leaves

autumn heaven gave way to the winter couch
chests by necessity warm with the
warm beats of memory
multiples of seven on the parting finish parting palms
on leather
leather and a refuge fantasy
nineteen
or twenty

the shoulders of a soldier of the soldier of the soldier
that you should have could have been—

dreams and cheeks ready came, after
pulling blood and fingers and sons through slowthinking hips
sharp with the thought of your laugh and lips
broken record touched
sorry
sorry
sorrysorrysorry I’m
so
sorry—

can you remember?
the rains are a little alive the
living rains are a little memory of the
little sweet high
the little clocks
barely
waiting underneath the ghost of the second afternoon train

my bones were fragile in january are fragile in january please
keep touches brief keep touches soft keep touches to the city
only in the camera lens keep touches to the curtains to the kitchen to the
hy-
po-
the-
tic—
don’t make me give it a name
just be my brother don’t
let me give it a name
(four
ever
forever
sunset
stop me)

goodbye was to be navy and floor-grazing and in my own
words. that evening you were to buy me flowers for the first time
despite how adamantly I didn’t ever want flowers for those months
you were to know I was wrong that last time
I was to smile at you and cry in the bathroom for the knowing that was
it

but evening walked too quickly and spoke hell
the language not the word, my language not your word
I only understood the skyline
you only understood numbers
let’s make a deal, you said, as the sunshine made its last orange address

let’s make a deal, I agreed.

stumbling like sugar like horses like homeless like
muscles literature-fixed and all brown-bricks
grandiose and unready. grandiose and unready.
grand. ready. no—

so—

stumbling through the seasons through the ceilings we became a mid-march anachronism
nothing to lose
nothing to lose
nothing-to-lose
nothing
nothing to
lose

nothing

can we just stay till the dawn
it’ll be fun we’ll be fun we’ll have fun you’re fun
taste the minutes melt like rock sugar
watch the dust pillow from the middle
only human
fingertips feel the shakeshake and the desperate tears
in fabric

honey pearls
tiger hearts
scratch-blind highway floods
mad july
that july

where were you
where are you

and where am I

midnight taffeta calves, your mom’s rose-gold
diamond pendant resting between *******
too-long hair tamed, fastened at your nape

this peculiar impasse between pretending you’re
prom-young and you’re midtown-gala-elegant-old
you’re a little both, at twenty-one, and a little
drunk—fourteen-dollar champagne, picklebacks
and the desperate paradoxical preservation of this memory

you can hold your cloud-head up beautiful still
so you hitch your dress
runrunrun behind the Rhodes
crouch down in the thorns with every-elegant-one you love
twenty-one, desperate, ebullient, ****

and ****.

stand up straight again, glowing, sage
check your coat and dance
nobody’s the wiser

you tell him things like
hey I’m drunk I’m ha ha ha
come join me, it’s
ra-vish-ing

he thinks you’re
just so **** fun
and he thinks you're
ra-vish-ing

but sometimes he says
no
he’s elsewhere
got
things to do

and if he saw your cheeks, those nights
he’d think twice about the others

cat in the windowsill I cross my legs
on the smaller softer couch blinded like I
wouldn’t have it anyway else
clean glasses for the clean beams
clean left hand for the coffee
solitary where later I will not be

the year of the paper-cut slows to a trot when I squint
***** rug through narrow iris pure white in the meantime
the year of the paper-cut giving way early to first-aid spring

break, break, break they kept saying
cat in the windowsill I cross my legs
say back no, I will not

quiet melting from the gutter
quiet trilling from the guitar
quiet sunshine on my knees
quiet sidewalk waiting patient
for quiet
warm
feet