I want to go back to that dream
where you touched my palm
and I kept it quiet
where no one saw me stopping short
while you were close behind
barely there

now, your electric fingertips
keep me awake
the details blur, and
I want to crawl inside that dream
and sleep till noon

high voiced Irishmen and spun sugar turned to
teenaged dreams and a teenaged circus

cold beaches in October like candlewax and promises
to call
bacon on the stove and cemetery gates and no one
to answer

if-this-was-the-cold-war to
this-is-the-*******-cold-war to
how'd-you-ever-get-so-blind

to the summer of warm warm warm and
the nights you'd have wanted at
sixteen and twenty
if you'd thought about it

and the big empty road in front of you that
under Orion's patent-leather belt looks so
not empty

how you're tall
and freewheeling

but not without

it was
in the congregation of ochre skin around his knuckle
that I knew to feel more coarse but more detail-attentive than the skin of his cheek, and it was in
the ribbing of his t-shirt, and in his ribs.
when I kissed his mouth that Saturday, we thought quietly together
“we are kissing on the mouth, we are kissing we are kissing”

tonight, when I kiss his knuckle almost imperceptibly,
I cannot hear his thoughts, and mine are “I would sooner be nowhere else”
and “happy birthday” and “I’ll need a haircut in a week or two”

leave the levain out overnight
don’t overwork it in the morning, knead gently
mist the inside of the dutch oven to create steam

this crust your crowning achievement, you
capture it from every angle
shy to dig in

savor the feeling of a chest swelled with pride

and then ugly, uninvited, the memory of his
swelled for a different reason, a
distraction

even on your sweetest day

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.

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

this is where we sat
my elbows bony
your mouth a hard line

some walls are painted yellow, some
lined in mirrors, yours
bare
i was

ancient
crude

drawn in eternal by words that mean
things that they don’t sound like, building
materials that belie their insides
lengths i’d never go to

we are both what we say we are

I had
my cold hands against my neck
I had
a new blouse on
I had
a sad empty feeling
your sad empty smile
was mine

a clock without numbers
a clock without a body
a ghost on the opposite wall
it could never be a pocketwatch--
a young girl’s lip trembled
--neither could she

the door was swinging open
and closed
and open
and cold

winter the storybook villain
had turned to winter
the armed robber on Washington Street

sad and empty had turned from something
to all we are

shrink the shapes down to fit in your hands
they are not legible like they used to be, there is no
beginning or end or denouement
there is just the dust that settles once you’ve forgotten for long enough

it’s not ever really long enough for your shoulders, though
they twist with knots you can’t visualize, so deep your
fingers stiffen and your eyes look hollow
remembering is harder

don’t breathe as you cross the street, you could catch it
you darkly note that it doesn’t really matter, he’s
already gone
what difference does a mask make

but you hope it does
and you haven’t yet let go of thinking when will it end

though more and more it’s met with
I can probably live like this
and whiskey

All right, dear—
open your steno book and
transcribe every other word:

I, I
                 missed, missed
                                                   you, you.

When I ripped the first bag of chamomile,
distracted tearing packaging,
and on the second water’s boil
and on the bittersweet lemon peel I
threw in on a whim,

and when I cleaned the dishes, not well enough,
your earlobes lodged in my mental faculties,
and when I emptied the soap so you
wouldn’t notice.

I made dinner—don’t write down that I
burned all but the potatoes, dear.

I want you everywhere; transcribe that.

There’s a vase in the cupboard but
let’s keep the flowers on the bed.

there are two options when something happens that you don’t want to happen, something that changes your plans, something that takes a girl (who loves you, loves you, loves you forever like you’re sunshine) that you were going to get drunk with on a rooftop and kiss till if-and-when she fell in love and makes her into a girl whose Boyfriend Wouldn’t Like That. you can dig in your heels. you can stew and hate and surrender to the agony of we-had-all-these-plans-and-now-we-don’t. you can say I Will Never Get Over Her. you can tell your friend She Was the Only One I’ll Ever Love. you can tell yourself you have to want her forever or forget her, and you can’t forget her. you cannot ******* change your plans THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL PLANS.

or.

you can change your plans, even though they were beautiful. you can remember that she tried, and know it wasn’t enough for you but you love her more than just for her handholding. you can not-excuse her but you can forgive her. you can tell and tell and tell yourself it wasn’t right if it didn’t work, and you can believe yourself one day. in the meantime, you can have lunch with her instead of pay for dinner. you can turn her into beer and philosophy on picnic tables instead of wine in bed. you can take another girl to the rooftop who was made to love you the way a rooftop girl should love you.  you can quote books about the love you deserve because you deserve better on a rooftop, but you might deserve her at that picnic table. there are two options when something changes your plans. you can cross your arms. or you can open them.

in the winter, ice had crept over her
slowly. it had hardened over her collarbone,
her hips, her tongue, her hands.
but on this february afternoon, the sky almost gaudy,
light spilling into her car and mixing
with his laugh,
it crackled
split
and melted.

the long thin fingers of a girl of twenty-four
wrapped tight around the handrail of the L-train
bright-blue-eyed but for the temple bruise

                   he loves me
                   and the mess I made

everything tattooed (everything everything)
invisible on her cheeks and in the hollow of her shoulderblade
her lower lip and wristbone
but for the temple bruise
darker by two shades

          a four-in-the-morning-night cottoning her tongue
          not-the-first of many and her long thin fingers
          white-knuckled

          little joys to light on the handrail
          not his warm-hot-ice-hard chest
          or his loud voice (woulda been real handsome
          if his eyes weren't so cold)

but for the temple bruise

                                                         ­   i
                                                           ­ fell
                                                            in
 ­                                                           love so many times that day
                                                            t­he first sunday of its kind--not drenched
                                                        ­    in imperceptible airdrops

                                                       ­     the red-brown beard of the business suit
                                                            ­and the freckles undermining the punk-rock
                                                       ­     vibe of the dark-eyed fox-girl

                                                       ­     but the thin white knuckles
                                                        ­    and the temple bruise

                                                         ­   --none more than her

Let’s go back to 1.
To start again, to meet you, to seventeen, to yellow
and hugs, to hammers and strings.
Nobody knew me then, and I ****** up
told them the true story.
Let’s go back, and I’ll tell you a different one.
It started out a prepschool fantasy. I had a
Great Perhaps, and you
(were there, probably)
And then I ****** up, my friend.
I’d like to revert to 1: a second round
I’m ready, now.
Hello, nice to meet you
Would you like to have a drink with me?
I will say yes. I will be thin again for you
And when you touch my arm
I will not shrink
from you.
Let us. Let me, at least
Revert to 1
and promise
(I do—to do better now).

On money-soaked leather, we’ll make angels
no I’m sorry—we’ll make amends
I will talk breathy and flutter my eyelashes; I will be Daisy Buchanan
a rosewater anachronism that needs no cigarettes and no pretense, only
Attention
(I stood at, when you said goodbye)
There will be no end. There was no end. Not a goodbye.
On rust-red rooftops we will soliloquize
(about what?) (it doesn’t matter)
We will throw lit matches and watch how fire makes its mark
And we will separately wonder where it goes
and—are you listening?—we will watch the sunrise
and I will tell my daughter about that day when she is older.
A prepschool fantasy. We will drink to the word “contraband”
and it will be 1966—the rich kids’ 1966, the whitewashed one we pretend we are ashamed of.
I will be Daisy Buchanan, and thin again for you.
Let’s go back to 1. I would love to
try again, and better now.

this is an invitation to act rashly
I close my fists, full of imagined marbles
as big as your big hands and hot to touch

I imagine sitting cross-legged on his floor
we are in front of his salmon couch
on the frayed area rug I imagine he has
I imagine he has mismatched dressers

I don’t know why I imagine us on the floor
his couch is probably softer than it looks
sometimes they sit on the floor
in the movies
maybe we didn’t want pizza grease on the furniture

our knees touch, I imagine, indian style
unmoving
we exchange embarrassing **** we wrote in college
I think how college was earlier for him than for me
how while he was losing his virginity I was
bussing back from a jv tennis match

I imagine him laughing at a word in my poem
I defend my phrase, lunging then lounging on his quadricep
he’s showing teeth and crinkly eyes, putting
his hand on my forearm draped on his leg

he thinks the phrase is cute, actually, and so human
I imaging smiling back and we’re looking at each other for a little
too long and the air is electric in the way it gets when there’s
poetry in it and teeth showing and skin touching and we are
very close to one another, I imagine

I can’t stop imagining
I unclench my fists
quietly drop the marbles
this is an invitation to
act rashly

I turn to you and tell you I’m having
a really nice time

grand(iose) gestures but constant assurance
Our Ceiling Is Low. Our Days Are Numbered,
let’s not do this anymore.
is that what we decided
let’s not do this anymore?
I’m drunk you’re drunk
Okay

grand(iose) gestures and lights out
and darkness fumbling and
I Don’t Know What I’m Doing
we’ll figure it out
and how low is our ceiling, did you say?
what number are we at now
three seven nine let’s say ten
let’s not do this anymore
just one more minute
Okay

grand(iose) gestures and breathing and
quiet and finally
and sleep-sweat and the wee hours
waning
let’s not do this anymore.
okay
Okay

I keep you close by.

it’s by the book to watch,
to tether, to keep you walking straight—
I believe in order—but
I can’t say aloud that that’s not why

whispered, barely:
it's, instead, because
without locks, I think you’d go
if I looked away, I’m afraid you’d go

what do you learn but how to close your door when it’s coming
what do you
what do you learn but how to only whisper, never yell
only let them see you when you’re pretty
only let him touch you when you’re cold

since the morning you allowed it I’ve taken full advantage of your loving me
I’ve watered my impatiens with your loving me
I’ve thrown back my gin and tonics with your loving me in mind

and I haven’t paid it forward
I haven’t paid it lateral
I haven’t paid
haven’t paid for anything
and they’re catching up to me
the barkeep thinks I’m new in town
the doorman shakes his head

and the door keeps revolving as he stays obsolete

I keep loving you inside my scarf
and the wind takes it
when february comes

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

the imagination wanders.
that's all it does, really--a flâneur
masquerading as inventor
inverse
or escapism.
behind his eyes you're more than what you are

you're pearls and quiet promises he swore he heard
you're emerald or
a lighthouse.
behind his eyes you're more
than all he wanted

the imagination wanders--
his, out-of-town
--and you are left. and less
(but all he wanted, the playful universe reminds you unkindly)

he wanted a decadent contemporary reimagining of a jazz age novel
and you're less

you lie in the grass
just shy of sunburning
and your hands are warm
and your coffee is cold

and it’s the same world still
but it feels like a better one

sometimes I close my eyes
imagine I’m blind
shapes and light veiled, soft
day and night melting, overlapping
rain and sun both bright

words you said and hums you
may have made
I can’t remember, now
memory and vision criss-cross
past and daydream clasping hands

when I open them, you dissipate
each time I call you back
growing warmer

there are fewer words for this
kiss on the temple
soft knuckles
the first sip

but it's as good as
any repurposed for
less regal things

a popsicle in august
the sweetest ****-you to
midday thirst

the first snow and
realizing
you can play the piano still
after eight stagnant years

it is
wanting to stay
where you
only ever
cherished leaving

often, I revisit the etchings we made
they betray our precise age then,
arrested—permanent,
for the moment—but tenuous
subject to the forward march
of you, of your outgrowing

while I remain
so much of me left back in pictures
in words on walls
so much of me still sixteen
so tightly woven
into the pale imagined future, faded
and the technicolor past
you gave me

so little of you, not nearly enough
but all there is

we laugh twice--

first loudly; of course
they can't hurt us

quiet, freeze-dried smiles
nervously after
what if they hurt us

pointillist muscles ache
by turns sharp and muted
echoing soft water lilies
once planted, twice uprooted
caught on canvas
then let go

the radiator sputters
stoic but senile
they taught you acrylic lakes
were more gray than blue
and you paint
by the book now

hard winter holds your brittle fingers
in what it imagines is a gentle grip
you smile to hide your grimace
the quiet sun politely reminds you
what you promised
then let go

yes how fitting that she is what she is
inescapable and terrorized by what she is
and tries on deaf ears to illustrate that color is terror
when it fades, and when it breaks

how fitting that she left the winter in her wake
how fitting that she didn't feel it following her, shadowed, sinister

that one word gaining myth and momentum as we go (and we go, and we go)
it does not define itself; how fitting her frenzy to define it
in the inherent vacuum where it cannot breathe

how fitting that she stumbled and reversed the seasons
and that orange blends with autumn ground but not with april
and when it fades, and when it breaks
it isn’t ever overlooked
or forgotten

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

I was older than you called me by my freckles when we met, barely
stretched over the cattails lazily in sweet winds imperceptible usually through
the hot water air
at a parboil

your cigarette-and-sunscreen, cigarette-and-sunshine smell and feel I have you
now as I walk eyes closed down the autumn street
no all smokes do not smell the same, I miss you—

the world in your departure is static for the most
ironic twist of you thought, you thought that I was beautiful
I wasn’t, not while you were watching, not till you
were farther
till I was older, barely

oh if all smokes were you still
if all the suns were you
if I weren’t beautiful and you were looking
oh

home is where the
dog died
where the carvings in the walls say
I heart ryan four ever

or it used to be

I could etch the rooftiles of the
abandoned hot dog stand in foil
from blindfolded memory I know these walls

I could drive drunk from 111 to 25
unbury the spare key where
hannah used to live
I could
recite the streets and pebbles between yours and mine

but they say you can’t go home again
you can’t go home again
you can’t go
not again

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

“let’s celebrate a beautiful year,”
said one particularly sentimental mosquito
on a sideways tree in central park.

she and five girlfriends floated down
and joined us by the earth.
they paused over me, breathing my air

then moved on, instead
choosing his calf muscle for their joie de vivre
—his blood is sweeter than mine.

crash crash crash was the calm smooth
hudson current
percolating like your
electric kettle soul
earl grey hands wrapped around

crash on the pillowtop
the closest thing to injury you knew
the still crash the
crash they bottle on the radio for you
crash lulls you to sleep
crash crash crash all you heard
all you wanted all you didn’t know—

mirrors shatter
mercedes tangle with birchbark
little quarterbacks forget their names at 22


hello?



he drops the phone
forgets how to
pick it up
you fall in line
try to
forget too

breakfast cereal disintegrates between tooth and cheek like
andean snowflakes do underfoot where I go to get
gone from the day-in-day-out ladybugs on the ceiling

I swallow it for the calcium
it doesn’t taste like much

and they smell when they crash into the mirror

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.

years of words on paper, meticulously folded, filed,
un-forgotten, found and re-found
so often as to tear the edges, smudge the ink
un-escape back into, trapped on the ferris wheel of
spotless rosy memory, broken-record memory, memory,
memory,
memorize, become

words on paper
words on palms
words and touches and sharp intakes of breath etched
and etched
and etched and—

now, we use disposable cameras
look at what’s in front of us
we’re starting to
remember how

we make the best of things, she said about the rainy season
our ten-dollar words swallowed by timid tongues and our
mile-wide headaches on our shoulders

we make the best of what, quizzical I ask her
she stood to lose more but she was better
she ran five kilometers at a time
she ran pretty circles around my holiday smile

ten-dollar words instead of money I carry with me still
to remember that I got there once too and
to feed to the mechanic when the engine stalls

does the engine ever stall
it does

To grow up a restless gull, itching to go in every feather, spreading fingers across continents and craving every one of them. To finally go and lose your hunger. To settle into the next place like it’s the last, tuck your head under your wing and know only parking lots. To forget the sea was yours.

To need to hear the same song every day to keep your head. To paint a mural of where you’ve been so nobody suspects. To avoid eye contact because you’ve got nothing behind yours. To forage and forget. To forage and forget. To forget.

there have been so many
days gone in years
lost in years, etched in nothing

but this one
is somehow
etched everywhere

in your collarbone your tongue the lines
of your iris
in the stitch of your jeans

in raindrops and puddles
growing always
lightening the sidewalk when it dries

thunderchilled, shoulders icy
but only on the surface—
underneath, it’s
etched in everything

i can’t help but remember all the things you taught me—
how to drink to excess and wake up smiling, how
to cook rice, and where the train is—now
as you lie sideways on the couch,
listing baby names with a cracking voice

cecelia sounds all right

farmland, not death, is the great equalizer. death separates the famous from the infamous, the young from the old, the lucky from the alone. farmland, stretching to the horizon, makes pennsylvania into connecticut into ireland into kansas. you can't tell monet's haystacks from mine.

I woke up on Tuesday and I was older by the calendar and the law and I said “hey that’s grand”. When I woke up on Tuesday I was also older by the symbolism and I sat wide-eyed between suitjackets on the 7:45, coffee half-down and a brand new watch on the left-wrist. I made spreadsheets. I shook hands. I was The City when I took my first swallow on the rooftop. I couldn’t see the Empire through the cold-May-fog but I could see it in the mirror and on his knuckles and in his eyes. When I woke up on Wednesday I made more spreadsheets. I made more coffee. Then I was home early and Connecticut again. But Friday was the best ******* day. The sun beat me to good-morning and my favorite gone friend ate a gyro with me and another chugalugged to 42nd street on the bright red leather across the aisle. My favorite hand to touch was there for the second drink too, and I loved my job because I admitted that I hated it, and that’s okay. And he was there again on the cusp of days, and he’s there now still between my ears, and Friday melted to the next good-morning and I’m here now, city-drunk and sky-drunk and *******-I’m-so-lucky- and wine-drunk, and dizzy on the rooftops I’m imagining are better than the ones I rule, and Sunday’s coming and I will sleep for ages and hey that’s grand.

the bitter and undersold other-edge of perfection
where it turns around twice and settles down among
stuffed turtles and hedgehogs and buries its nose in its tail
only to spring up at the noise of passing traffic or
loud voices next door or
a sigh
overtakes the perfect first face of it
the one you seek your whole life and that
comes for an instant before fading to gray
and you scold yourself for the growing thought that
it looked better from a distance

insipid, her blue eyes her blue dresses. the only-ness of her. her laugh like oleander.
she was Strong and Independent and she Didn't Need Me, but she had me anyway, for a minute.
i am cross-legged on the ugly wool blanket we made love under first. the first of many but empty.
i am cross-legged and my fingers restless, invisible piano keys trilling to the wee hours. many but empty.
the skin of my index finger bitten raw, the skin of my lower lip bitten raw.
the pretension of her jabs at pretension. her manufactured offbeat passion. her cat, her moleskin notebook.
ordinary, but only. insipid but aquamarine and clear as bells. she Didn't Need Me.
the first of many. and empty.

new york was first a big empty window-walled apartment
a trundle bed and Victoria
and finding that I can’t love anyone more than I love the
solitary solitary solitary train

next it was hungry circles with a
stranded little man
going too far to get back home

and then the  l - - -  of all our lives
maybe l - - - ing someone more
than peace at eight a.m.
irish cream ale in the evenings and
push-and-pull-and-push

and now it is
westward, higher, hypothetic
thinking where is the balance
between the train tracks and the
sweet sweaty bed

at the end

one, two, three.
hours of sweater lines written on your cheek and
your undereye circles tender to touch and
water in both places and
your shallow breath, violent
saying you’re sorry, sounding like nothing.
sweater lines in the mirror and no way to make him know, and
what that does to you.
one, two, three—
what that does to you

one, two three.
remembering how you don’t like flowers, and
how you are supposed to, and
white knuckles
he asks you to explain.
if only

one, two, three.
four.
unplanned, the monster in the closet
that hasn’t brushed your open palm in years, and
you forgot.
he said don’t worry, once, it wasn’t real
it won’t ruin you
he said that

four.
backs against cold walls, this time, and
long long quiet.
one, two, three.
his undereyes, too, this time, and
your involuntary muscles, violent
unmetered, sorry,
always.
one, two, three, and

four

yellow-not-gold library lights far off
dizzy circles and the truth
you saw the wrong direction
and I saw the door
and everybody saw it coming
but you and I valiantly didn't for longer
than the weak-stomached
didn't we

a girl with too-long hair and smiling eyes
and two laughs-- one sardonic, one irrepressible
had very little
room to sit
next to him:

                                           a boy, almost a man with a
                                           guitar and callused fingers.
                                           strong-- hands two sizes
                                           bigger than hers.


she leaned on him (out of necessity, of course)
he held her up (to be nice, of course)


                                           their knuckles touched and she got restless
                                           she moved her fingers against his ever so
                                           light
                                                         ly


he played the game and nudged her thumb


                                           fingertips like dancers on broken glass
                                           collided
                                           quietly--



                                                    ­            like vines, we intertwined
                                                    ­            *carelessly growing up

i remember the time you told me that
ginger soup would cure my cold and that
eating pizza with a fork made me so strange
that you weren’t sure we could be friends
with a sideways smile lighting the corners
of your amber eyes

i was drinking wine from a jar cross-legged
finally bold enough to ask you over

and i wouldn’t let you kiss me but as you laced up your
boots for biting february, i called out to you that i’d changed my mind
and you kissed me so **** hard it nearly hurt
but it didn’t

a year later, cross-legged again
so many days between you and now and the fading
memory of your warm chest on my ear
and i wish i'd crawled inside the ticking clock that day
tucked the minute hand into my elbow crook
and stayed

on Orion's belt, she spends her wish
though he hangs there, unfalling, why wait,
she wonders, why wish on empty air
(she forgets, though, that even Orion,
brightest warrior, isn't really there)

and she dreams in most conventional
metaphors, and she scolds herself: her
unconscious architect
would not be commissioned for the
Golden Gate Bridge, or anything, if you
know
what I mean

when she closes her eyes (awake)
she sees the colors like his synesthesia
though he kept his finger paintings locked away
and his fingers without prints
never there (he's never there)

and good mornings come in pairs
and nights look unempty (don't tell
her what they are)
why wait, she wonders

god forbid you wait