if your body is a particle, then
my body is a wave. it's like what
you said about gas flowing through
machines, but electrons are here or
they are not. how come i can still see
them lined up inside the ceilings, buzzing
like plasma, at the top of their slide?

if we were to reverse the magnetic
throne of the cosmos, we would need
a loud flash in the sky, we would need
to sift softly through fingertips of the mid
atlantic ridge, hiding some old geological
secret between spiderwebs of sediment.

or perhaps we could just use the polarity
of your countenance. when deep layers
in your bottom lip mold into the glowing
curve of a waxing crescent moon, the
circuits lose hold of their currents like
dry wells, the ancient secret is unveiled.

and that is what you want, right? an
apocalypse. a royal key into the ground
through wilderness. once we return the roots
of our ancestors into dirt, will we suddenly
connect the triangles looming in a nuclear sky?

you and i, we lick our bonds so tight, if anything
crashed into them they'd shapeshift into seismic
waves released as thermal energy.

you reeled me in from
the aegean's slow murmur,
my gills covered in algae, my jaw
chomping rhythmically under
the hollow tree of my mouth.

didn't anyone ever teach you that
fishing for nymphs is more painful
than comb jellies, slower than marlins and
as safe as the glowing earring of
an anglerfish mother?

on the deck of your vessel
you cradled my skeleton gently,
fed me crispy hard coral and
begged me not to eat you in
the night, when mars made his way

toward the fiery backdrop of our
natal charts. how intrigued i was to
find that under your beard hid a
chain mail of scales, the map of
your palms was drafted in plasma,

and your iris is not pigment, but
a distant reflection of geysers
snapping like scorpions out of
the ocean floor.

you spent the nights dancing to the
howl of sirens like no man i'd
ever seen, and somewhere between
our fingers, where you passed me
the whiskey, i threw my arms up
and remembered how to move.

you spent the days following the
wind's hips, you didn't care if she
changed her mind, you said.
you are like the belly of a sea
star. slowly in the twilight
i uncoiled my fear of wandering, i
threw the pit into the open ocean and
the rope followed, slithering down.

now all we have is constellations.
all we have is moon fragments and
bird islands and my hair flying
like a compass, like a shining battle flag.

i can't smell land for miles
and i am not afraid.

goodmorning
the **** convinced me
not to move the black bracers-
killer whales wanting to dance
but i stuff them with threads,
knots of ebony and fishnets,
so they hang over my body
at night during my journeys.
are they looking after me or
are they after that red bead
in my center?

burning woodsmoke now, patchouli
melt creamy- as venus sways one
hip from the fire pits of aries
she ends up on the other side:
the dirt finger grove of the steady
bull chanting "hold and touch and stay."

goodmorning
when has the sun glided his way,
as if upon the hips of a sea nymph,
across miles and angles of what
was a dark night?

keep your water, i am weaving.
i am breathing every taste of it
i am touching infinitely that center,
so sought after, like the walls of palaces
when tongue touches lip
i am rubbing every color through me
i am watching your scent drizzle gently
all over my pools of skin.

tend me like the earth, goodmorning
string me like the grape vines bursting forth from soil.

that is what the buttons
on your flannel are.
everything else is honey
comb through my skin,
lava moving through muscles
you've had 200 years in this
wreckage and you still won't
say a word. then suddenly
i have to talk over you, suddenly
you can't fit your emotions into
your sentences so they start
creeping into mine. when i
kissed your scars, i meant to tell
you that i understand, that they
mirror mine, that you should take
pride in every curve you have
survived. you will not give yourself
that credit, perhaps that's why
you taste incredible.

heather why did you
come at this time, in the
midst of all the cacophonous
panic? forgiveness aside, i know
you're lifting lids from my
third eye, a gift you always had
in life, you still share selflessly
from the other side.

heather why did you
leave so ripe, in the
mist of a summer's moonset
cultivating cold? all my guilt
creates blockages, it cannot
fit inside me, it sits instead
as a crown in a place from which
you would pluck out both
horns and halos, and toss them
while laughing, into the stillness
of the sound.

i know these false records and
moon shifting memories are not
all i am left with. last night
when you laughed, it relieved some
of the pressure, but many times
i've seen you laugh when you were
sad, so how do i pull this
fringe all together?

heather why did i
ignore you for so long? was it just so
the scale could tip now, or are there
signals in the circles of the ripples
that rebirthed you?

what if
when we play the tape recorded
song of rival birds in the wild,
the male of the forest
gets ready to defend his
territory, digging claws
into branch, arching beak
into moist summer morning

in the same exact way
we as human animals
open the watergates of our
veins, in response to
the tape recorded clouds,
crashing ocean waves, and falling
oak leaves which the creatures
from andromeda have
elegantly placed along the
freshly wiped laboratory
shelves of planet earth.

i thought i'd never step outside
lightly, without haste again.
how is it possible to stand in your air
without wool, new england?
it's the vitamin d sliding off
my skin into another *****, i
try to tell myself.

today someone i admire said that
i am dharma.
and i thought, he must be
confused, because i cannot
sleep until the birds converse, i cannot
read until someone holds me
at gunpoint, i cannot
do laundry until i am drip
drying in -4 degrees at wide eyed
3am. how does one who teaches me
claim i have done the teaching?

also, i thought i'd never watch the celtic
wolf pup with any woman
calmly, that my exotic fires will always
blaze your landscape when you
inspire my first love to lay eyes on
another, new england. i know you
favor the irish girls, i thought
i'd never lose that finger. but last
night when he kissed his
new blonde girlfriend in my
dream i didn't feel like fire,
nor ice, nor the typical acid bath
i expected to turn into.

it was more like the very
last snowflake gently swayed
her hips down to the peak of
mount olympus. the final atom to
complete a solution suddenly switched
to soft frothy white. i stared
at them a moment, puzzled while
the piece clicked in, your frigid
breeze irrelevant, without consequence
and the way laid out ahead of
me, cavorting down the mountain.