He likes joy girls,

The ones that spring upward in the wee hours
And smile because the sun is coming soon -
The ones that rise with the sun
And keep right on rising,
Even 'til the sun is setting -
Then they rise on
Into the night,

He likes girls with fluttering fingers
That tingle when they touch you -
Ones with round-eyed spirits
That peek out from the pockets of their irises.

He likes joy girls,

Those "sun-in-my-pocket" girls,
The skipping instead of walking,
The "I'm too tired of talking,
(I'd rather be off singing)"
Girls,

Girls with giggles so infectious
His frown can't help but slip-up,

He holds these girls the tightest to him
'cause his days look much too much like
The endings of,

Late October dusks.

now I'm a shipwreck in a sundress,
an aimless, shameless coquette –
a first kiss, a second guess,
a weak and wobbly pirouette.

Buddha tells us
not to get into
interpreting dreams
so in a dream
my dead father
told me to go
to the post office
at nine in the morning
for something
that was sent
by planned parenthood
and I got
a free laptop.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.