How I miss you!
The rubber sun
just shines and shines
without you,
mute and meaningless.

It shrugs itself up
into the air,
lights the lawn,
and slowly pillows
down behind the Cairo
& other tall buildings.

Then the moon takes over,
pallid and slow.
It pulls itself into the evening,
inch by inch,
transfixing the dead park,
the silent pavement,
the empty cars.
Until morning breaks
the spell, and the moon
hides away behind
low blue plumes.

How I miss you!
The sun and moon
are no replacement.
They only remind me
of your rhythms,
your chest rising, falling,
the way you put a book down
before sleep takes you.
How I miss you!
You are the center
of things.

She walks the city
as it wakes.
Under cloud committee
she walks the city.
The river's pretty
as morning breaks.
She walks the city
as it wakes.

The past is always
my witness -
the beach-eating;
the stumbles of love;
the small birds chopping
their wings through
the hysterical greenness
of her rain yard;
the late night snow walk
to her house on Otis,
full of first mistakes;
the blinding braid of ink;
the endless column of
the unsaid.

Soft draft of moon
& rescinding cloudburst
over green-oiled yard:
April night.

Night, craftsman of lies,
crazy, imaginative, chimerical,
what do you show to the one
     who conquers the good in you?
the flat mountains and dry seas;

inhabitant of empty brains,
mechanic, philosopher, alchemist,
vile concealer, blind lynx,
afraid of your own echoes:

the shadow, the fear,
     the evil you are known by,
caring, poetic, sick, cold,
brave hands and fleeing feet.

Awake or asleep,
     half of my life belongs to you:
awake, I pay you with the day,
asleep, I don't feel what I live.

They are sailing
at high tide,
the galleons.
As clouds break
on the pink
evening mantle,
and the wind
purses toward
the waists of trees,
the galleons reef
sails and draw off
into curtains of surf.

That was the day
you told me to meet you
by the split rail fence.
When I got there,
all I found were squares
of black grass
and a moon
as white as a lie.

You haven't moved
in several minutes,
a perfect model,
as if it were your goal.
The sun filters through
gauze and lace,
the peculiar mid-morning
light that muscles its way
across the wall
in grasping splashes.
Your tea is steaming
in its high-waisted glass,
& I hear half-sounds
escaping from your room.
I am the reporter
of your brown eye,
writing this moment
to you even though
it's already gone.

Green rapture of human life,
crazy hope, golden frenzy,
intricate unsleeping dream,
like dreams of vain treasure.

Soul of the world, demented lushness,
decrepit imaginary greenery,
the today of joyful expectations
and the unfortunate tomorrows.

Follow your shadow in search of your day,
those who with green glasses for cravings
see everything painted to their desire.

More cautious of my fortune,
I have both eyes, both hands,
and only see what I can touch.

It is a night
of champagne and ashes.

Here is a glass
that never stops weeping,

singing your name
with a wheeling hunger.

I sit just nearby,
under yesterday's chandelier,

reaching your sleep
with all ten fingers.

Tonight I'm rioting
with your smile,

and my skin
is insane from wishing.

Tomorrow I will be satisfied
with your wanton eye,

and the clever flood
of your lip.

Brandy in my blood,
thoughts riding across
the pink plain of my hand.
M Street confessions
come cheap this time
of year, when
cherry flowers tint
the air with their
exploding heads.

Her version of me
seems better than mine -
I'm always out in the distance
selling rain back to the clouds.
Spring's coarse branch
clubs the brownness
of my unspooling eye.

Is she second-guessing?
Who can blame her?
I have burned all
my wild dreams
into flakes and cinders.
My art is hungry,
a nest of grinding teeth.