Tuesday night and
you've accepted
the proposal, yet
under the chandelier
of mistaken fireflies
you half-smile,

a drawn curtain
that I can read
enough to worry,
to feel
the body
move away.

The rest of the night
is a sharp nerve,
& gray fingers
of a fog slip
down the street,
thin and ashamed.

Lancing sun
in a wilderness of
roiled stratus -
a day begins
under threat of rain.

A stalking heart
crawling the high grass
searches for you.

I've made hundreds of
searches for you,
crawling in the high grass,
a stalking heart
under threat of rain.

A day begins:
Roiled stratus
in a wilderness of
lancing sun.

Went to the
therapist drunk,
a blonde Wednesday
of rain corsets,
redding leaves,
cloud dough.
I remember the
syrupped anger,
distilled from
child's blood,
dripping on the
therapist's shoes.

Late afternoon
floating avenue,
apology of grass,
little pushes.
She was waiting
in the shaking
shadow.
This time
I had some kind
of self-regard.

The falsetto
"no no no"
shot down
the steepled
maple *****
into the walking line
by the metro.

How someone
got up there
we never knew, or
what made them yell.

I remember only
that the sky
was littered
with the wrecks
of clouds, and
it was a Friday
in winter.

We all stopped,
though we
saw nothing,
& then
it was over.

The grass
waved away
the watery
minutes,
& the sun
rolled loose
among the wrecks
in the blue ditch.

So we towered
over red tile
on the metro
platform,
hands heavy
with phones,
until the train
obliterated us
with its urgency.

Black crash
pillow's face,
twilled to
the old nightmare.

Ironic that
the child who
spent years
fighting
the father
who left,
the mother
who curled,
ended up
divorcing
year after year.

This night
shone with
shedded
skin. I
walked away.
The moon
was pregnant
with an
airless sea.

I woke from
all of this
feeling like
a wreck
that might
be saved
by you,

but the miles
between us
argue so
persuasively.

They could seed
the clouds
with silver
in the high distance
until the sky,
hard and shining,
sent lacing rain
to drop at each
of our feet, 5,214
miles apart.

Miles of sea floor
& mountain back
sleep between us.
Miles of birds,
miles of laundry
on the line.
Miles of great aunts
smoking cigarettes
on the stairs,
miles of mice
slipping through
high grass.

If it seems far,
close your eyes,
because miles
drop quickly
in the dark;
you proved this
to me long ago.

They could seed
the clouds with
silver, but they won't -
instead I seed your
eye with this lyric
until it rains
inside you.

Orange buttons
of repetitive sun
crush up against
thin folded dresses
of blued cloud:
You send me
earnest self-portraits
& my cantilevered
eye is oh-so-yours.

The sunset strides
one more chestnut
step, and I remember
how you laughed
when your shirt
parted for my
tickling hand:
even the moon
was up on its toes
hoping to see
the bright heave
& glow of your skin.

Where are you?
They buried you
in a sleep in the air
so I must mourn you
everywhere;
even with this poem,
this cenotaph,
this memorial
to the notches
you left inside
your son.

My mother's friend,
bleak-mouthed,
took me to St Matthews
in cinder glory
& kept her eye
on the thin gold leaf
spread across colonies
of saint's faces.

No, I'll never forget
sitting in the blue car
with my mother
when she told me
Eileen's brother
had killed their parents.

Eileen moved
to Bristol
& got married.
She made calls
that rattled my mother,
sent fruitcakes long
distance.

When my father died,
she couldn't stop herself
from insulting him;
my mother forgave.

A year later,
she died swimming -
my mother's mind
leaned back fifty years
& remembered someone.

I...
I remember only
St. Matthews,
the way the windows
below the azure dome
hissed with light,
& how Eileen -
indifferent to religion -
explained the rules
of the candles
for the dead.

"We three, we're all alone,
   [...] living in a memory,
   [...] my echo, my shadow and me."


Over in the corner
are your books,
stacked into the wall.
I like to be the mourner,
it seems. Long looks
at your bric-a-brac, at all
the things you left.
The night is perfectly cleft
into darkness and silence.

What else can I do,
but poison myself
with sentiment?