The west side pilots
   have left me again
& the abetting sun
   has bedded my violets.

The market of sleep
   is full of false starts
& the gingery moon's
   just a pock-marked heap.

Down in the office
   there's a tunnel of nothing
& tongues are falling
   with heavy high profits.

Brown hair of fall
   blue legs of summer,
fumble the moment's
   drift-hearted crawl.

The night sky is only
   a black dead dough,
& late in the morning
   hands are so lonely.

The west side pilots
   have left me again
& the abetting sun
   has bedded my violets.

Soft cerise band
& slate speckled
with cream cloud -
light birthed on a hill.

Night unslips its hand,
ultramarine, star-freckled,
from mintish trees bowed
low over dew-dappled sill.

You're the one
who fills my days with pleasure.
Under endless sun,
you're the one
whose joys run
without measure.
You're the one  
who fills my days with pleasure.

Mehmet II burns
in my hand
while we hunt
the Perseid shower
under a waxing
gibbous moon's white
sea broadcast.
Prosecco disappears
inside us. You pick
deck tomatoes, and
conversation gets
interesting by your knee.

The night doesn't end
so much as folds and
folds again, with us
by the very center.
Sinuous silk birds
crease into sheets
just beyond your
delectable ear.
Your breath
a dark ribbon,
a flower of steam,
a door I step through
on my way to the
kingdom of hands.

Dear E--,

Sewing gold,
we walked
in the vacant
invisibilities.

In a hush-throated hall
we saw a Last Supper
of acrylic blocks,
breaks of the past.

Wooden masks
deviled the olive wall,
& we found tiles that
turned out our hands.

None of this sustained
you when the sun dropped
beams like pick-up-sticks,
aces of heat.

It didn't sustain you
when my friends
split like copper stills
across the breaded table.

The grand oil lamp
& the sea chant
became ash daubs
of noose memory

when I returned
to your dark room.
I'm sorry for every
thing I couldn't repair.

Every whorl
& loop in my hands
held you tight
as boas.

By the time I felt
your breath settle
into the delta of sleep
things had half-healed.

Still, I trembled
with sharp dreams.
In the morning,
I was yours again -

as I always was.
This is my apology.
Yours,
Evan

Each pushing beat
is a kind of fall,
a low broken drum
in the hot dark hall
where the heart
is the size of a fist.

Red clouds skirt
over unlit streets
where the moon splits
like a rotten peach,
crowded in
a low black patch
of night-angles.

Again I'm in the same
unhappy plot,
dropping away from myself,
stiffening into one
whose mouth
is a voiceless half-slash
that a ***** fingernail
might etch
in a grit of clay.

Broken machine logic:
if alone, then woman.
If woman, then alone.
The tape is cut too close to the reel.
The night is too close,
& the reel is spinning:
watch the heart
in trembling skin.

You'll tell me that
you hate this
neighborhood,
& the midnight

adventures
I had years ago
down Dahlia St
& Georgia Ave

will strip away,
thin, ******.
I'll notice
the broken walk,

the dead grass,
the trash gathered
in the raw verge,
I'll be embarrassed.

You'll be unhappy
in the new place
you're in, and
I understand but

I won't be able
to reach you.
I'll have learned
by then to shut up,

grip the air on the
silent street, take
some steps back,
let you have

your thoughts.
I won't be able
to save this situation
with magic words

said perfectly
in a pentangle.
I won't be able to
rescue you from

this drift, I'll
only be a tether,
a hand across
the void.

It'll all be new
and foreign
and everywhere is
a walk in the sun.

Washington summer
will be a hanging heat.
Soon I'll chauffeur
you into the slots

of the city, but I'll know
that won't salve
your feelings.
I won't do anything

but walk by your side
until it all ebbs.
Under the radio
tower in this poor

neighborhood
I knew so well,
I'll still my tongue.
I'll step through

the weeds to the home
where I'll hope
you will maybe find
something yours.

The tower climbs
in periodic orange,
lung-like patterns
above the slate run,
casting evening in
long frequencies as
I run the face of
century rows.
A hilted moon cuts
swaths through
clouds of interior
peach, piercing a
gin-muted sky.

Blocks of night
advance across
the blue golf course
& empty highball
glasses clink like
bells in the porch
dark. Broad curves
of street rise in
the humid trees,
then sweep and
glitter toward
the hospital.

Four and a half
miles bring me
to the train station,
under the black
water circuitry.
You arrive in your
night-soaked dress,
walking me home.
The streetlamps
are aching yellow.
Rain never comes.
As a we drift home
I feel so lucky that
all my runs carry
me home to you.
I draw a shower,
& a charcoal horizon
tilts, tilts, tilts.

Moonflower,
sewn through the trellis
with your lemon scent,
breasted nocturne blossom,
your intense distaste for the
bardiche sun that swings
across the high meridians,
how I favor you -

I will be your vambrace,
your cuirass, your sabaton -
your ancient metal shadows
that cool you from
swipe of day,
     my moonflower,
until the short-sleeve
freedoms of night.

The girl from Dublin
comes to me here
under the the summer sun.

   Her beauty is soft
   as the day-ghosted moon,
   & never outdone.

She drinks her new city
a cup at a time,
until her coffee is done.

   Her beauty is soft
   as the day-ghosted moon,
   & never outdone.

I love her early
in the curtain of morning,
where the red trains run.

   Her beauty is soft
   as the day-ghosted moon,
   & never outdone.

She has wild light
under her step
when she walks or she runs.

   Her beauty is soft
   as the day-ghosted moon,
   & never outdone.

I wait each day
in an old black chair
until we can be one.

   Her beauty is soft
   as the day-ghosted moon,
   & never outdone.

The girl from Dublin
waits for me here
under the summing sun.

   Her beauty is soft
   as the day-ghosted moon,
   & never outdone.

Her beauty is soft
as the day-ghosted moon,
& never outdone.