he grew a light beard over the summer
and he looked like a sculpture, like a ******* adonis
in the most beautiful handsome unplanned way
and he was talking about laundry detergent, or apple pie, or something
and you zoned out looking at him
and then your friend whispered in your ear
“What is that ugly-*** beard”
and you said “Yeah”
but you smiled a secret smile and kept on looking

It always rains on Thursdays
except this Thursday.

There were gray clouds still but a little strip of magic hour
And the orange-leaf tree who was early for autumn cast his leaf-shadow on the grass

And I thought

Hey
This is nice

coming back to where you first met
Agony
and her brother, her even (meaner and) more beautiful brother
after a spell of the freshest forgetting
and rising early for a run, and eating raw almonds and practicing yoga
and being by yourself not-as-suffering

Oh.

You are all toothy smiles and dark curls and
“I’ve had a wonderful time”
and you are telling the truth
but you believe that you are lying

And.

Agony’s brother went home to the West; Agony misses him so she stays indoors.

But she shows up every so often

for a cup of sugar or
yesterday’s party

long fingers against your shoulder, on your temple
soft mouth behind it—not anymore, but
it’s okay it’s okay.

a good listener and a good talker, and a mouth no closer now than a foot away
it’s okay it’s okay, and a handshake to close the deal
left open between your legs in winter.

it’s okay it’s okay. an almost-perfect parting, no closer than a foot away
but no farther than a mile, and “let’s still be friends” true and ringing
for the record books; for real.

and summer throwing states between you, but words to bridge the borders
and “I met this new guy” and “I think I’m gonna see that girl again”
and telephones, and postcards, and true-blue.

but
dark and sweaty july air and a visit and a cocktail
long fingers brush your temple by accident “oops I’m sorry!”
and
soft mouth behind it, close
no closer than a foot away—not anymore, it’s okay it’s okay.
and “let’s still be friends” muffled through your mouths and mouths
harder to understand, now

it’s just smile, tilt your head
artistically—it’s anything you wanted
it’s in that pretty limbo, that hole in time where you could have it
anything

but then they took your freckles off one by one
paint—white paint—as much soul as you could cover
they cover that hole in time
and you cannot lean back

sweat under all the layers and taking off your shoes
a hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone
and family photos, muscles, armymen
just a little off-center and you can’t place why
just smile, tilt your head

it doesn’t work now

9:43 on a frigid clear morning, the morning I made the conscious decision to stand as far as possible from the dropoff to the train tracks, and an older gentleman next to me, newspaper folded, saying "It's a cold one today, isn't it". And I smiled in agreement and I drank my overpriced coffee, fogging up the sky.

10:13 on the train, unwashed windows turning the sun *****-bright, and I didn't drift off for it as all the men in suits and flatlined mouths slowly did.

And 11:36 in the City, a man I had decided not to love and his sarcastic appreciation of modern art, and me laughing endlessly. And this man showing me his secret hideouts and telling me secret stories, stories that you earn. I had decided not to love him, though, and so I didn't. It was easy because he had made no such call.

And 5:52 in his marble high-rise and his bed that was bigger than my bed, on it, he told me he had decided not to love me too. And then we kissed, and kissed, with nothing-to-lose moving our hands and mouths all over each other. Nothing-to-lose tangling his sheets and relaxing our heartbeats, and making them audible.

8:04 on the night of the morning I began to fear the third rail and the whoosh of the New Haven line, a bruise on my neck and my kiss-swollen mouth flashed red and *****-bright to the post-commuters, and the man I forgot not to love still in the city, and the feeling of peaceful but irreversible damage heavy on my lap.

she bounced. up and down as she walked like the years she had
were lighterweight than everyone else’s. and she squinted in the bright light because her eyes were blue
but she kept them open as wide as she could to see all the flowers.
she was allergic to flowers. strangers on the corner told her “bless you”
when she sneezed. she was summer, in a way. her wild love for places
pulling ******* her wrist, moving her from bridge to bridge
sun browning her shoulders just so. and her wild love for people
pulling ******* her baby heartstrings, moving her from bridge to bridge
sun browning her shoulders just so. and her wild love for wild love
pulling ******* her belt loops, moving her from bridge to bridge
sun browning her shoulders just so.
and warm air all against her neck
and alive, always, but especially then.

I noticed that you left a footprint on my patio
the brand of your sneaker stamped across it, it was the shape of North America
and that’s where you were, quietly moving through
my little city, my little between-the-ears
my little muscles, contracting with the thought of you
expanding like the thought of you
when you are gone, and I only see the ghost of your misshapen bootsole
it moves faster than a train, and I only know that you are in North America
and it is too big to find your small quick step
but I sometimes remember that you are North America
and then I feel you everywhere.

glossy paper—I don’t have any glossy paper, I panic
I cannot do you justice on carbon, so I do you no justice
and rely on shaky memory for your being-gone
your gone-ness, your not-here

it comes and goes but it comes, it comes more often
and it’s like when you think there’s water in your cup
but there isn’t, and you lift it, and it goes above your head
and it’s a bruise on your gums from a bread-crust you don’t remember
and when you leave your favorite shirt at your summer home
and the housekeeper takes it quietly

I can’t look at you without the proper paper
I can’t look at you at all
I can’t do you justice in your not-here
and I don’t trust my eyes
to see you after

I can play an E-minor chord, I tell him.
I can play the cello, he tells me. He smiles with half his mouth
and I kiss him again.

It’s getting late and I’m measuring
the time by the five minute steel guitar and the five minute steel guitar
and we both know where I’d rather be but here—
here is okay too.
His hands are different, but they will do.

coffee appendicitis and baby tragedies
a toxic fixation and his nineteen fifties apathy
his clothes hung loosely over you.

you are sleeping on his bedsheets but your own bed
they smell like him but feel like you (**** them)


and you can listen to him smile through the door


but you cannot open it.

he caught her eye across the diner. put a quarter in the jukebox.
told her to choose a song, on him. she giggled and chose
the rolling stones. he said "take a walk with me"
they walked through the woods where the highway had been
before the flood in 1994.

talking like new yorkers talk but softer he took her
hand and he said "let's skip rocks let's get hot"
and soon she couldn't separate the smell of damp grass and sundown
from the smell of ***.

he said "let's play car-and-driver" and she told him that the
dented white sedan belonged to a waitress,
the rusty pickup to a cook, the black lexus to a businessman.
he said "you're good at this" and she blushed.

he kissed her very violently on the drive away. the sky was orange
and it drizzled.

as i skate my fingers over your
pale abdomen
deliberately, so as not to break you
i feel the quiet and the still that has
settled over us, like the makeshift
bedsheet picnic blanket in spring

we move slowly, as if we were a
flashback or a dream
and i think that our bodies
were made for this--
just this

for this languor and
the unending of it

In my geographic corner, where it rains most often,
when it does not, I remember you
on the face of the rocks, lightfooted on the oracles
amongst the bobcats and the butterflies
and the sunshowers like curtains from real.
Years ago, but minutes; miles, no—
I cannot deny the miles.

I open my window on this spring morning and I
taste Delphi in the air, and you,
you everywhere.

my natural eye, and your new hip moon
and your hips, sharp hip bones and forgetting that
I could use somebody—
you never forget

the floor with imperceptible scratches
our bootsoles tracking cold sand and—

where we buried the key
you never forget

I like when you sneak glances
at my paper, at my tongue

I miss the shudder in my knees when
we passed the City skyline
it was better than the first time

you never forget