i've spent months like moths between poems
sacrificing gods for endless answers
but always losing the light or dying on a too-hot bulb
unable to comprehend infinity as a spiritual fly-swatter
but i'm learning how to surrender to silence
diminish into campfires
wash in busted fire hydrants
meditate inside the figurative dumpster of solitude
perhaps forever this time

but my attraction to her is raw
like the sun today at 3pm
burning away my anxiety and shadows
not fueled by selfish lust or vanity
but by surprising vacuum
she is frightening in her beauty
her mind filled with incandescent chaos
her voice a softly spoken flute singing in a canyon
her hair a delightfully suffocating gas
her belly, her smell, everything from
her nostrils to her feet marching
through my tingling limbs

she was from the far end of the universe
a dream of the temporal lobe
polluted by the spike-and-wave blips of computer music
halos around mouths chewing ecstasy pills
her mystic lips curled and eyes lightly fluttering
over a simmering can of cherry coke
my hands an unsteady inch away from
her heated and heaving rib-cage
my lips whispering breaths onto her ivory throat
after a 4am romp donald duck explains
childhood memories from a buzzing television box
the smell of man-musk and sandalwood
spilled whisky and patchouli thicken the air of the room
as weak dawn light streams in through philodendron stalks and fingered leaves arrested by the wind

your morning breath ricochets
off my cheeks, you're still
drooling dreams into my pillow
my warm, bulky down comforter
hoarded around your petite frame
as i spit my sanity into the ceiling fan
i glance down at you
your face is somewhere else, painted on a canvas
i move a lock of hair behind
your still-sleeping ear with a fluid
passage of fingers and wrist
my thoughts pumping
into the margins of this dusty room

you are a man's sister and another man's daughter
but all mine last night in the bathtub
beneath the skylight my grandfather built
as southern stars too thick for constellations
sang into our laughing faces
and again on the kitchen counter top
my **** made of steel and flint
neither of us minding the extra weight
our sweat became fire and water ripples
as we stumbled into bed like birds
confused by the strobes of spanish candles
forgetting to fly

sunrise dispenses glassy light
deep into my mouth as i dance
across a wet morning swaddled
in awkward feathers and
you appear as a statue in wine colored velvet
struck by light from the bay window

this is a craigslist missed connection ad
because you were
beautiful and drunk
and i was
drunk
when you approached me
at the beer tent
said 'hi'
and something about my '...bare feet'
but all i heard was 'kiss me ******* the mouth'
we had so much chemistry,
neutrons and protons colliding
when our fingers touched as you
passed me your cigarette, exhaling
i watched as your hair began to stick
to a crest of sweat on your neck while
we chatted for forty seven minutes and
thirteen seconds, near as i can figure
never mentioning each other's names
or phone numbers but
if i ever see you smile again
i'll slip you my name like a prayer
pressed to your lips or a ring on your finger
even though you said you hate jewelry
your ears, so cute and small and not even pierced
solitary necklace adorning the angelic collarbone
now burrowed into your left breast
it's a cheap faux crystal trinket with a purple tint
that you got for $15 two years ago
but you love my earrings
saying you always had a thing for guys with tattoos
you're an environmental sciences major
and a wonderful butterfly
with eyes like an ocean
hair that just won't quit
and the most delicate navel
i've ever seen
you're perfect and
i might've dreamt
of your legs
for the last two nights
those devilish muscles that first
brought you close to me
then, quick as light,
stole you
away.