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

they tell you that you can’t go home
bound by street lamps calculus and city boys
you are wearing a blazer as we speak and
your prom queen’s popping out another
forgettable night bearing down on you where
your streets aren’t made of cobblestone and
everybody talks like each other
and you can’t go home maybe but
you can’t stay either

"i'm tired and god
**** it i just want this day to be done.
that girl in the blue sweater makes too much noise
and i'm tired, okay? i'm tired."


"she is beautiful, just beautiful, and you can tell she doesn't
know it. i'm glad she can't see me staring and god, the way
her curls fall down her back like she dropped them there by accident.
she probably did."


"the great depression was a real *****."


"'thank god she's talking to me again. does this shirt make me
look fat? would she be ****** if i distracted her?
i don't think she even likes wuthering heights, anyway."


"i miss dancing so much. i love this book but not enough
to make up for the pain that's not in my feet anymore."


"i lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering
among the heath and hare-bells;
listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet
slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

I hear your voice echo on the walls of the Tiffany box—

hello hello
hello

hello

—with that southern-belle cadence
you spoke with always, like when you
told us we never had to knock, just
come in through the garage

on my graduation day I opened it for the first time
little silver teardrop on a little silver chain
delicate, like all of you, except your fingers
delicate, like the line you’re walking now

your robin’s-egg antique pickup gathering dust as I am miles away
sheepdog going deaf, legs shaky when she stands

I only allotted for that one loss this year.

on new year’s morning when we all
stomached the black eyed peas for tennessee good will
hung over and sweet-heavy with cinnamon rolls
and decadent, permanent, big hardy love
I spent my wish on the usual

and hey, maybe a couple more years for the dog.

hello hello

hello

hello

hello?


your lilting voice echoes every time I put on that necklace
and feel you, savor you around my neck for every
wine-drunk dinner and every nantucket porch photograph—


god if I would have known to wish on that

i have known the taste of violet; it has
stuck in my molars long after i’ve finished
it has been my wine-stained secret
i have known

the striated forearm and clenched fist
the mirror in the ventricles
and the hardiness of them
the measured beat
beat
beat

i have known the scrapes that even cardboard leaves
with a slip of the hand on its way out
i have known better the scars that mouths leave by association
on the shin, on the skin, on the cortex

have i known anything but
violet
i wonder

I remember vaguely speaking of water tension when I spoke of you, when I realized the amount of our time I spent in pajamas and that that was bigger than just I-like-pajamas, it was also getting inside the bubble on the penny so as not to feel the contours of the water so much as each drop grew it into more fragile, and more fragile, and more fragile, and it defied the middle school science experiment when it never broke. it never broke. when it happened in my eyes it always broke and when it happened in kissing it always broke but the big bubble that we were in never broke. I thought that was good. we defied science, I thought. but the thing about water tension is that it is tension and it never went away. until now. I don’t feel you when I see you now. I feel that you feel me but it doesn’t matter. it broke. it was just a water droplet on a penny.

maybe it was on the dam, graffitied
by hummingbirds
where i counted red ants
and minutes
on the bridge of your nose
at close range

and where we said goodbye
shrugged our shoulders
and never came back

or maybe it was on the brown couch
opposite the copy machine
that covered my hands
blackened them while you were away
you might have been proud

maybe it was in the recesses of the library
where i drank too much coffee
and found the only thing that drives me

or maybe it was right here
where i made up a nightmare
and never could shake it after that

he wasn't much on saying so
but it made its way onto birthday cards
and deathbeds

it’s something mundane but im-
possible not to miss
never the vast neverending or the
reflection in your so-pretty-eyes

not how it’s purple in the sundown
or the time you kept your feet dry
waving from his shoulders in the ebbtide

it isn’t the round he gallant-
ly orders for the two of you
or his singing voice
the salty never-gone stillness
in your eyelashes

it’s something mundane—
the no-memory but infinite patience
the time he touched your too-warm forehead
and when the water rose how he
kept you off the shore
—don’t forget that

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.

your pulse has been steady for ages now
and you only cry at shakespeare— never at your frailty
you’re not frail

tonight, when the door locks behind you
and you jiggle the doorknob; you
pound the glass and nobody hears you
not one soul

panic rises, boils in your ribs
and you think well hey
at least only security guards
will see me like this

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