i caught a glimpse of her once,
just as she was leaving.
the sunlight cut her face
like a scalpel, and she flinched.
in the doorway, the dogs
barking at her feet, the day's
bags suspended from her frame.

the one with her wallet, her phone.
her purse pinched in the crook of her elbow.
the one with her lunch, also there.
the backpack with her water bottle
and planner riding high on her
trapezius muscles. the ones holding
last night's tears still hovering above her
cheeks.

and she isn't wearing the necklace
i gave her last year on her birthday,
i can see the pale line on her collarbone
where it lived. but why would she?
the ring i bought fits perfectly
in the kitchen junk drawer,
she is unadorned.

i tried calling out to her, but the dogs,
and she didn't have the time. the earth shakes
and the world sharpens it's blade
again. she turns toward her car in the driveway
and melts back into routine.
a piece of blue-black hair falls across
her face, and i am in love with her again.
but things change, and look how naturally
she goes.

you made my heartbeat patter
in the driveway starlight
i was waiting for you to arrive
and i felt wonderful, child-like and perfect

i felt electrified like a timber-wolf
slipping quietly thru silver winter woods
as i watched with patience as
your silhouette emerged
you drifted low to find me
you were a brightly colored kite
an angel flitting in a hanbok
delivered to me by six black horses

you slipped into the soil of my body
like a whisper
i was already halfway there
in one sense and
fully realized in another
when i took your hand
i touched it with my hand
and i saw the secret harvest
growing inside

we were on the edge
of what we wanted
as our hands folded
into each other
into newness
i promised
and you
promised too

and a wind curl
blew our souls away together
a breath-defying disappearance
into the tented sky
into oblivion
into this future

the imbecile boy found love again
walking aimlessly & self-conscious
with the year's regrets falling
behind like fat blossoms in
a summer shower out of
my longing i had invented her
it was by happy accident or
a subtle shift of scenery
in the numinous grove that
i entered that spring with an empty heart
so i wrote her all these songs
so i could live again
cue the hallelujah choir singing
'this is ours, the impossible'

my rib-cage expands
every time i think of her
like recalling a beautiful dream at breakfast
through a yawning smile
my prophetic dove lying next to me in bed
the first flicker of reanimation
with the heat of her veins
interdependent with mine
stripped to the waist
with tresses of her hair across my chest
& shoulder i'll thrive in a forest of it

i launched 'i love yous'
from a sun-lit country porch
& they traveled 300 postcard miles
over roofs & the tops of old elms
to collapse into her ear, exhausted
now i am the pen, she is the paper

she is delicate but
my love has wild-cat claws
& live pink lips above smooth
wingless shoulders & i am hypnotized
by the adoration & light reflected in her eyes
i built this cathedral of words for her
these towers like puffs of smoke
& exultation rising in our slow dream
i carved this river through the broad valley
where the fish nibble at
dazzling afternoon raindrops
while i get lost in her body awhile
this kaleidoscope is a place i could stay

repossession & co-awareness
now we're strolling across the air
together in perpetual acceptance
gliding like the first morning orioles
through six panes of clear blue sky
over the circumambient hills of the new age
toward the alabaster sea
with her bright compassion pressed tight
against my side for the journey
we laugh softly as our hands engage
never again to disengage

for my birthday
god gave me ten thousand white birds
so i wouldn't be alone
but i am alone
and for the sake of no one
i'm still awake
hot under the electric lights
deep in my own soup
so i am writing to you
dear lover
i am flying to you
over the asylum's main gate
gliding amidst horns and headlights
and i hope you are home
curled in between cool linens
i am writing to you
in every poem i've ever written
badly, but with sincerity
small-voiced and whimsical
i am trying to love you
love me
i have no shame

meanwhile it's my lunch hour --
the sun burns the cinderblocks pink
12:40 on a thursday with sawdust in my hair
and a piece of lead pinched between
forefinger and thumb fighting the
sudden onset feeling of vivid panic
i'm obliterated by the sense of being alone and
lost outside the plexus of purpose

my docile body is being stretched open
i am churning unsexed and weak
weeping on the steel edge of hysteria
half gouged and puttering beneath
this burden of butterflies in my chest
the girl is a great distance away but
maybe she'll notice my plumage rising
and receding like a brittle sail on a
dark green sea or hear
my cells test the very limits of elasticity
diverging terribly into flamboyant aqueducts
and humming on the wind like
the plow tractor trumpeting in a far-away field

she is a fawn lying on a summer picnic blanket
sprawled on the rolling meadow as if it were a beach
a genuine beauty in the white of the sun's light
wearing a pair of reflective sunglasses holding
her face puckered up expecting a kiss
and a delicate fire surges through me
my eyes are blinded by the green grass
radiant all around her
and my pulse thunders inside my ears
longing to be immersed with her in safety
ripped up by a lust to be accepted and free
and folded together softly against the hard world

i am being hollowed out into electric rivulets
by the painful consciousness of my isolation
by the broiling heatwave of july against
the longest winter of my life
my heart aches in my front shirt pocket
waiting on my phone to light up or ring
and so i fill my ***** glistening torso
with what i hope is a lethal dose
of papaya-coconut water

and so there she stands
your daughter liberty
alone and weak
because you left her unattended
in a sundress and fireman's coat with blood
on her chin and her face contorted
for the cameras to see
stupefied on the edge of the gravel pit
with the confetti ash swirling in her hair
and her eyes filled with animal fear
as her slack body slams against the railing
and a swan song swells in her throat

they use billy clubs to beat back the rats
under the skull of the moon and
the fickle stars like frantic pouncing eagles
the neighborhood dying has scratch marks all over it
diamonds etched in storefront windows
and rollicking clouds of tear gas to make it fun
there's a ****** taking a **** out in the open street
and where's the flag? oh i remember
it's snagged on a parapet five stories up
burning in the ignored sunset between
the silent buildings

we are an enormous pile of sentient garbage
coming up from the rot wearing life preservers
advancing with the picket line tide
blowing flashbang death on flugelhorns
outside the framework of the 2-party system
invented by the mongrels in hollywood
guerrillas moving in troupes thru the city streets
filled with exhilarating hope and
plumes of smoke insurgents chanting
violence is american as apple pie

i keep my tv dark to reflect the flames
of the grocery store outside and my insides
feel ripped up, i've never had a shave this close
squish my denim body against the window like a telescope
to hear the growl from the depths under the city
this is the moment just before something big happens

this is the flashover
this is when the panic begins
there's a man in a tree out in palmdale and
i need the morphine to tell me it isn't my fault
i need my pastor to tell me god doesn't lie
tonight the fuses blew out on an entire continent
tonight i wept

then the immense mass heaves up
and the streets all fill with diamonds
in vivid hot designs
and the country contemplates
the pagan city as a zero.
then the country, driven to pondering,
panics. oh, how the fire frequents the sky
with straightforward accumulation.
it boils the sluggish blood.
there is too much
too much fire in the hands
too much fire in the hearts and eyes
this engine consumes too much
and the fire rages out of control.

in the drifting smoke, i saw bodies
burned to bare bones and the survivors
lunge forward. the chorus girls sprawl
on the sidewalk and are swept away.
the quick flame is the dividing line
the end of the sabbath.

the books all burst into flames and the dancing
is boisterous. my cheek pressed into the wall
of a skyscraper how satisfying. the falling waves
of sparks uplifting and gyrating with the kickers.

follow the long curve of hose-water with
your aching neck and see
the influencers arriving drenched to the skin
in fire-spray to divert the journalists. but they are
helpless and impotent and the edifice slips into
the pavement. this is the unexpected harvest.
and i preach nothing.