At sunrise a little girl calls
Uncle and he comes to
her and past, down the pier
to reel in the blue *****.
Everyone is crossing
the river where it meets the bay
to exchange pleasantries and
to tear off the legs.
So by mid morning: north
up the winding road past
foggy construction zones.
Everyone is crossing
the lake in canoes while she
is catching salamanders,
throwing news in campfires
and tripping over her shoes.
She takes her paddle to the water
and then the sun right above:
time to move.
A couple hundred exits passed,
a couple hundred exits past
noon. A little northwest
this time, a little late
for lab. Everyone is cross-
ing campus like they mean it.
She climbs and counts
and it's actually one hundred sixty-
two steps up the clock tower--
you have to count again--and what
a view. Jumping isn't the way,
you can't go down when you're
on top. She follows the water
norther, wester, you have
to count again, have to see
something new before dark

With windswept hair and the beginnings
of smiles, faces in focus and the backs
blurred, arms out to the sides like birds
that are already flying, hands in hands
that brighten what is around them
instead of fighting it. Serenading each
other with words that settle into
the crisscrossing of passers by instead
of matching them step for fist. Wouldn’t
that be nice. Instead we sit a little apart
on the rocks, because even when
we are close the telescopes magnify
the distance, and I look up instead
of around, trying to recall the difference
between comets and asteroids and
meteors but only half in it. Those things
could be anything, as long as I get to watch
something else burn as it falls.

We have ventured from the start
and lost sight and broken apart, but
there is a way to live without
hearing heartbeats as ticking clocks
shouting of times past;
we sat side by side through every class
and we’re not done learning. Our
gravestones are jettisoned from the shuttle,
floating there goes gravity but
even shadowed from the sun by so much,
we clutch at moons to make our own light
on our own planet. We
could keep going now,
could stop each other from falling
and keep marking our heights
against the wall even though
they stopped changing long ago
because we didn’t
and instead of accumulating
the weight of years and days
we could find a way to keep getting lighter
the farther we get from the beginning
we are finite
but there went gravity
cause of death: life

they say if you are with
a writer, and she never
writes about you, she
doesn't love you.
    
                          i say some things
                are within you that are
                      just too precious to
                                               share.

some things are buried
so deep in your soul,
your mind just can't form
the words.
                           so instead of saying
                     what i came here to say
                     let these words suffice:
                          some things are just
                         too precious to share.

In a row, three generations
of prayer. When foreheads
meet the floor, Nanu
gets a chair.

Crickets shout through open
windows to break the silence
and silk whispers between
knees and rug to break the bows.

Nanu is too old to bend
to pray; you pull her up
a chair these days. There

are Stars scared of the night
they’ll see you flicker.

You and two mothers
sway, there is mango
and honeydew on three plates
and dates to break the fast

shadow crossing the moon,
the tides forecast.

the sky lightens gradually
as if from nowhere, as if someone
in the sky is slowly rising,
blinking sleep from his eyes
and sitting lazily up onto his elbow,
casually ******* the brightness slider
on the universe as if he's done it
every day, he must have.
before the pink can hit it the checker
pattern of clouds fades away,
promising a casually clear blue
day but this one is more
personal now, his gift to me,
because on the concrete looking up
i can see the sun before it rises,
i know what it's like to wake
with the sun there on the other
side of the bed, to see her slowly
blinking the stars from her skies.
yawning, stretching, morning breath,
to see her rolling up her sleeves
and tying back her hair
and scattering her dreams of death
with a shake of her tired head.
and yet even before she is fully awake
she is so radiant.
the moon, shooting stars, even the perseids
step back to let her shine.
i feel as though when the sun
hides behind storms some days,
each day i will know why.

What if today was the last day I'll
see you?

                                                     What if it was yesterday, and I'm        
                                                                ­  not really here right now?

I love you.
      
                                                     ­ Who are you talking to?
                                                             ­                




                                            ­          I love you, too.

The picket signs put your life at stake.
With your hand in hers it is all
you can do to keep moving forward
because the signs are telling you
that love is not love after all,

that eves proceed their holidays,
spring freezes into winter
which ripens to fall.
Light burns off the earth in waves
that crash into the sun.

Bodies float out of their graves
like astronauts jettisoned from the shuttle.
Dirt hardened by ages sighs
beneath your toes,
magma slithers back into volcanoes,

the biker’s tires only spin forward
because he’s zooming back,
he holds a beer can in his hand
beneath one streetlight
and a firefly in a jar beneath the next.

Children are releasing fireflies
from jars, poking holes
back into the lids,
cutting off air supply,
untelling lies.

And you, as you walk
through the picketers,
are become a child again,
weaving through the legs of women
and men a party, hugging your shoulders

to yourself again to confirm
that they’re yours
as you stand in a dress
your mother picked out for you
the night before.

As the picketers leave you fall,
glasses crack, voice creaks
like an attic door.

Rain dilutes the salt on your cheeks
as it rises from the floor;
this is a mind war.
After all that backwards,
this girl is not something you want
to find beautiful anymore.

But you are still holding her hand.
Look,
she says to you,
maybe G-d doesn’t mean it
when He says He hates us.
After all,
He said let there be light,
*and then there was darkness.

You sit in a large hall.
On one wall,
windows climb all the way to the ceiling.
There is too much sunlight. It is bright,
and drafty, and always crowded.
But you can glance
up from the depths of words
and notice her, notice how the room
gets even brighter, notice how it gets
quieter and cozier and louder and smaller
and magnificently taller, and
you are terrified.
You smile in terror, and laugh in terror,
and wave in terror, and in terror
you watch her sit down,
and in terror you struggle through
a proof together,
a quietly terrified give and take.
You are content to wait in this moment
for the moment when you can give in
and accept what is true.
For the moment when you can stop
proving things.
You are afraid.
The sensation is not enough
to drain the warmth or color from the room
until she leaves it.

The duck with the voice of a smile,
The finger that follows the thread,
The dance with the air of beguile,
The tree with the flowers in red.

The dirt on the back of the shovel,
The sigh at the foot of the bed,
The bird with the flight of remembered,
The life that still lives in the dead.

I can’t sleep on my side
because the moment my ear
hits the pillow, my heartbeat
hits my head
and an image hits the backs
of my eyes,
of you talking about lies
and absently stroking your thumb
across your wrist,
feeling for your pulse
like a child searches the skies
for a wish,
reminding yourself that you
are alive.

your heartbeat is the shooting star
and mine is the emptiness it left
behind.

I can’t sleep on my side
because existing gives no breaks
and my heartbeat
and your far-off hand
make me so tired that I
stay awake.

Let the molecules charge and crack
and rip the world right open
around me.

Let the closet under the stairs
smoke and fry and cook,
let the tangled wires melt
into each other like they'll
never let go,
their flashing shadows
welded arm in arm like a
Pompeii puppet show.

Let the air's discontent
rumble softly and
let the rattling house rock me to
sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream—

It’s possible to love someone
beyond their demons. The devil
was an angel and all that. It’s
possible to stay inside and still
be free men. Please just put
down the monster-- that’s
not your hat.

dark.
grass, soft and itchy and cozy
an ugly christmas sweater
that you pull eagerly over your
head and snuggle into.

I can reach up and
swirl my hand in a puddle of stars
and wach the ripples of
starlight.

a ladder to the roof,
to the sky
the grass is below,
the sweater is discarded by the
fire — too warm
for it but it is remembered
fondly, its woven green fronds.
energy of the logic circuit burns
everything in acrid scent.
but it's not forgotten.
cozy, off to the side.

I can reach out and clasp my
hands around the moon, obliterating
the light, but it won't be dark.
hard to see,
not dark.

I can let my hands open
and let the orb of light
roll, eerie and slow,
out of the sky

it will have a soft landing
a sweater woven of grass
and darkness

do they glow now?
do they glow with the
light I brought you?

darkness is soft
softly hiding itself
in the quest to hide everything
scary that has ever made us
afraid of the dark.

light asks, softly, to be looked at.

sitting cross-legged
on the floor
bare right foot over
left knee, tilting
the controls like
that will give you
more control as a
kart hurtles down
rainbow road—
ever the hardest track,
but the one to which
every child comes back
time and again—and
to think some of us
will live there, will love
in prisms of light with
no railings, sit
among the stars and fold
paper cranes when
people ask us to explain
our pride
as if they have never
heard of love.

when you fall off the edge
everything goes dark
but in this life the ghosts
don't float you above
it all to get your
bearings back; somehow
you have to do it without
the benefit of afar; the stars
don't spin around your
head while you count
your scars; in
this life the ghosts
are dead.

I turned off the TV,
I watched a bird cross
the street, scurrying
on its little feet
and hopping onto the curb.
It did not use its wings
once. It does not need
to see things
from far away
like I do.

The moon is content
to believe without
understanding why
she was placed where she
flies, orbiting space
and looking at time.

But the earth wants to know.

It wants to accuse
whoever carved out
its calderas,
and at every aphelion
the moon finds it harder
to move, like she can’t drag
herself back through the blues
of skies one more time.
The tether that holds
them together tears
her apart.

The moon doesn’t get
dizzy, but earth thinks
it’s spinning too fast,
sketches up the sky,
an engineered map of whys,
of stars connected
by thin pencil lines,
she thinks in miracles while it
thinks in margins of error,
equations, exponents.

On nights when she glows
green, the moon envies those pairs
who favor the power of two

because she squints and sees
the blueshift in earth’s eyes
as it crashes closer,
time spills out behind her,
space suffocates
between them, closer,
perihelion come,
and she blinks and sees
earth’s caldera eyes
raised to nothing.

wine
cheese
beef. good beef.     (i am good, i am good)
things that get better with age.

antique cars
comics
old coins
things that increase in value with time.
rarities

i am rare.
even antique cars
have their duplicates
out there
but i am rare.
(i am the only me.)
i have to tell myself
this list.
there are things that get better
i'm worthless
only to me
only for now

leather gets softer, suppler.
fruit gets juicier, better, with the age of the tree.
a pile of compost, nothing but trash (worthless, worthless)
biodegrades (slowly, slowly)
—soil richer, plants grow stronger.

repeat after me:
*i am rare...

I didn’t need you to look
at someone like me and see
a rattlesnake where your
pillow should be. I didn’t
need to see disgust thrown
down at the feet of one of us,
or to imagine me as something
I’m afraid of, or to slink around
with my belly in the dust.

Instead of seeing what you see,
try to see what’s there: here
lies snow blanketing
the home above Jupiter’s
storm. The south-facing
windows have Saturnlight
much of the year, and if
you sit kindly on the porch,
the eighty moons will sing
to you. Observe the shed
in the front garden where your
rover can charge after its
Europa digs. You’ll find the
privacy astounds you,
but you won’t be lonely--
Elara will sing to you.
The snow will hug you,
the space will shun you,
but this you know is true
of any neighborhood.
Now step inside, have a look
at your new view. You are
alone but awestruck.
There is no cul-de-sac, nor
nearby school, but remember
that Elara will sing to you.
Aren’t you interested, then,
in your alone home with
the green eyes? Very well,
but on your way out don’t
forget to turn back--
I did tell you that here lies.

Your picture comes up
while he and I are in the kitchen
making salad
and he takes one look at you,
all strong eyes and tattoos,
and of all things to focus on
in this world of unbreathable beauty,
of you,
he picks as his focal point
your haircut.
Which is made of hair that is all yours
but somehow is just six inches short
of girl.

Well yeah, but not a real girl.
What does that even mean

She’s not made of plastic, I scream, she’s real.
She’s real, I scream.
He does not flinch, does not here.
I throw the phone on the ground
and it shatters like one of his corral plates
but I didn’t mean to break any window
from me to your face.
And with shattered-glass hands
and shattered-glass breaths shuddering,
I keep chopping.
I whisk in some mint and some pepper and salt.
I chop up parsley as calmly
as my shaking hands can manage.
He still does not hear the shaking;
compliments my steady hand,
praises my knife skills until I have to set the knife aside
so I am not tempted to stab at the chill
running down my own back and away
from this heated kitchen.
I mix the dressing.
I chop the parsley.
And there is chlorophyll left on the cutting board
so I wash it off.
It swirls down the drain.
She’s real, she’s real,
I scream.
She’s realer than me.

I need you to be
quiet so you don't
have to think
over the sound
of your voice.

I need you to come
in here, in this room.
It's my mind. I need
you to see what it
looks like when you're
alone with yourself
in it.

I'll wait out here.
You just pay close
attention to this room
and how you'll get in

Did you miss it?
Oh.

There are mirrors
on every wall

Each mirror reflects
into another, and all
reflect these reflections,
and small things
get big and big things
get bigger

Things that aren't even
really there
appear

Sight is just the way
light reflects off things
but suddenly you're seeing
things that aren't anything
at all except
reflections
of
themselves

You are the only
one in the room
and everything is
reflecting different
than it is

You see the things
getting smaller and farther
within each reflection
within every mirror,
but you're just one.

You peer to the side,
trying to see around yourself

but your reflection is
in the way every time
until maybe you aren't even
there, then
or you're just there to
take up the space of
the matter of your atoms
or you're the only
thing that's real
and
nothing
else

Someone calls you
from outside, someone
shouts at you to get
out, we have to go
somewhere or do
something or see
someplace

And you look around at
all the reflections and there
are no doors or windows
and you shout that at the
other side of the mirrored walls
but Someone can't hear
and Someone keeps shouting
to get the hell out
we're going to be late
just go
like Someone doesn't even
see the walls
but you can't see Someone
on the other side of them
so they must be there

If there were a fire right
now, what would you do?
If the fire reflected again
and again, if the heat
bounced back on you from
all sides and the smoke swirled
farther and farther into forever?

It's not up to code, is it. Building
Services would never allow it.
But you're in it.

There is a physical barrier you can't see
between me and what you need me to be.

You didn't design this mind.
You didn't even put yourself in it.
But Someone's **** frustrated with
you anyway.

And you begin to think that maybe
there are doors and windows
that you just can't see
because of all the reflections

but either way, they're no
use to you.

In my dreams there are smoke
detectors and crashes and lies.
There is a kiss in an atrium right
before it catches fire. There is placate,
stay straight, evacuate.
Neodymium nitrate always smells
a certain way and always looks
a certain blue. Why does an alarm
go off after I dream I've kissed you,
but never if you kiss me?
What doesn't my brain want me to see?
As Orion slinks into view
I stand mixing solvents at the centrifuge.
There is always a healthy dose
of things I don't know. Always something
for Orion to pin with her next arrow.
If I am not here, asking questions of the world,
demanding answers from what I put
into test tubes,
the next thing could be you.

The sun is setting in slant
rhymes and readings, outlining
the pride poets who stand in
front of the window in gold

thread. Those who listen
eat and laugh at their RESERVED
tables until the end of the catered
event, when the flag is draped

over the piano to soak up
a patch of dust and the
sun reaches to steady itself
on the horizon and the sky

purples— sometimes indifference
leaves a bruise.

Rainbow stickers and flags fade
to dusk hues as they
are folded into a Whole
Foods canvas

bag, minimizing space taken,
and nametags are peeled
off black shirts and blue jeans,
the lint sticking to the backs

of the names in the trash. The
sun ducks behind a mountain.
Colored stripes, prism rainbows
masked. Sweeping the floor. No
one is outlined anymore.

the sun is brighter than the moon
but its light washes over everything
till the world pales
into insignificance and routine
and night is more colorful than noon.

the numbers are introduced
to me
as imaginary,
gloves shaking my hand
and glowing figures
slipping through woods
with mossy sounds,
overgrown silence,
spells, keys, magic crowns,

until the fog stumbles in
and smokes us out
and hooded figures step through
the mist of does not exist
and into the sunlight of the other
side
that singes their edges
and shakes me awake
in the complex plane

of the linear mindset,
in which they're
parsing the problem
back to spells and keys
that don't open doors anymore
because the hooded figures
know all kinds of code,

see what I see,
see the root of hoodedness
enter our imaginary,
and as the only way out
the figures and i
shake a deal--

everything i imagine
now must real

The ring around the rosy has
stopped spinning.
The dizzy blurs sharpen each blade
of grass into a wit-sharp weapon,
each grain of sand into a
contented sigh, hands
in pockets free from posy.
The pigtails have stopped bopping
up and down, the red balloon
not popped but slowly
floating round. In a corner
of a tree with clearly defined
edges, Charlotte’s daughter’s web
glimmers with dew and some
small lies but mostly caught flies
that can be eaten or cut free
with that weapon, wit-sharp,
not as shiny as it used to be but
rather dull like ashes, as
we all fall down.
You could ask, at this point,
about the purpose of slowly carrying on,
but you’d find yourself swathed
in sticky silk— this spider takes
that from no one.
She hopes your far-flung hopes
and dreams your improbable dreams,
and sometimes it seems that
being quiet is easier than being honest,
but we do our best.

silence.
what? don't you have something to say?

darling, i always have something to say.
my mind is a construction site
alive and busy
people everywhere, moving
every which way
but it is so far away that
to me they are but ants
small and busy, so many of them
who knows what they are doing
what they are thinking.

i try to build words, but i am
too weak to lift them,
they are heavy as bricks
to my crew of small ants.
sentences thicken
into mortar that your
strength can master,
but when my ants
band together, bricks on
their backs, to spread it,
the weight crushes them
to the ground.

i fall before the words.

but
i always have something to say.

say it, then

.

I never imagined the job
atom for atom, breakthroughs
and item lists.
I imagined sitting on a
lab floor, tossing a ball
against the wall, catching flashes
of something in the periphery
but trying not to scare it,
humming back at machinery,
averting my eyes and then looking,
hearing you and being heard
until I've lost my footing.
I imagined that the knowing
would be burning.
We'd go right up to the edge
of the cliff and instead
of going over, learning.

dodging shards of terra cotta
on the ground and
shards of croaksong in the
air we crouch at the bank, half
way there, and the frogs vault
over the tops of our sneakers.
we are
scaring chipmunks and hiding
from snakes, balancing
on the pipeline with our arms raised
out like birds about to take flight.
at the reservoir people are
jumping from on high, grabbing
at stars on the way down.
when they land the cold
pries open their fists
and they surface shaking and
full of nothingness.
someone tosses an empty
can of keystone into the water,
stumble-swims away from it.
it spills over one dam and
glides toward the next,
a girl flinches from a rock
like a moth from a swat
and pulls the can to the crags, they
both rest there breathing heavy.
they both dry off.
she pulls on her clothes and
pulls herself home
in a flurry of forgot.
as more kids jump,
more stars fall from their hands
until the can is full
of a hope too heavy
to drag home.

Your soft sniffle
echoes from somewhere
behind you.

You turn around
and look into your eyes.
They aren't hollow yet,
still bright with
childish curiosity.

Naiveté is a beacon in the fog
that your small hands reach for
but instead of light they find
your thin, long, pale fingers.

You hold her hand.

Starlight has weight like water.

With frightened, eager eyes
you look at what you've become.
With hollow eyes you see what
you were.
She wants to grow
up but you want to grow
down, away from the
starry eyes watching you
from the sky.

Don't ******* up there.

The stars don't know a thing about you.
They watch, cold light.
Perhaps light is not the answer.
She flinches, almost to pull away,
but you are not light. Relax.

She is, but you squeeze her hand anyway.
The strange sensation of comforting
yourself,
of really being comforted at all.
She looks at you, questioning.
You tug her hand, pull her close,
your chin on her head.

Hug her, become her,
get her back. Protect her
from herself, protect you
from yourself.

For her sake, your own sake,
you don't want to
scold the sky again.

Did you know that an eastern
bluebird is a type of thrush?
It reminds me of her eyes, but
I've tried not to tell you.
And did you know a bluebird
has a red chest, like a robin?
Bright red, like the shoes
she wears even when it rains
and the water soaks through.
Did you know that a robin
is also in the thrush
family?

I can hear her steely-eyed
hope--in the bluebird's trill.
Did you know that chemotherapy
can be administered by pill?

One hand on the small of your back

to keep your mind upright 

and your eyes light

as you spill through the door

One hand, on the small of your back,

just the fingertips

propelling you forward on ice

until the blades slice through 
your cowardice.

until the speed you did not acquire

yourself makes you unsure.

Your hand

scraping the floor

I can't keep the colour of the sky.
I can't keep wanting to try
but this camera won't focus on things
that are too close up so if I'm not going to lie
I have to say
I'm a little glad you're so far away.
I wrote it down for you, the colour,
and you can read it to another
or copy it in your handwriting
so the words pale away from my slanted ink
to the link
in the stratosphere and are now reigniting
on paper you've touched that I've never
known as such.
I hope you use it to start a fire so I can
see your smoke clear
and I hope it doesn't change the colour
of the sky that I hear.

water is the kindest, quietest
friend. it clings to the sunlight
that is might caresses you
softly and you slice through it,
cup your fingers and scoop
it out of the way, kick it out
behind you and chopping it
up with your hands. and its
only response is always to
hold you smoothly first,
and to heal itself after. bubbles
rising to the surface, rippling
splashes fading into where
they came from, waves of its
hydrophilic self washing
over it. it can always
heal itself.

it is not worried about scars.

water is the universal solvent
when you need to dissolve

i knew something was off

because usually i like to
seek out the sad ones
and give them someone

but that day i wanted
to find you.

People cross the street
on white ladders.
The squirrel knows
that there is solid road
elsewhere.

It hops forward
ready to cut
corners and
on the move and
stops—
something light
and moving faster.

Squirrel will pause,
it will not.
People know
where to walk.

Cross over move forward
go on, go on go,
but in light
one should pause,
which squirrels,
of course, know.

In the face
of fast light,
let’s go slow.

at three times the speed of sound the SR-71
was so fast it didn’t need to hide, but when
I met you we were slower, metal walls covered
in black reconnaissance paint, sonar silence.

blackbird, shy

sometimes you bit your lower lip, or my
eyes drowned, and we looked down and I cursed
my stubbornly earthbound feet, but blessed
be the stars that crossed for us to meet.

blackbird, cry

under the cozy cover of quietly building-up time
we moved on. when the back of your hand
brushes my face it slowly lifts another brick
of something sturdy into place.
the way your palms get clammy with excitement
when you point out planes coming out and in,
the way your eyes light with joy and nervousness
at my reaction is how I feel when I lean over your shoulder
and point out jupiter in the sky.

blackbird, dry your eyes

the hello was slow, but goodbyes move
faster than sound. we finally found saturn
and then time ran out.
standard procedure for the SR-71
in the event of a missile lock-on
was to continue being
the fastest thing in the sky.

blackbird, fly

Standing at the edge of your eyes
my toes curl over the rim.
They push the ground away
I am just cold enough to breathe. I am
just helpless enough to let the water
support me and float free.

I am afraid the way I was
afraid of the mossy dark reservoir
behind the second dam.
Afraid the way I was
when I watched kids haul
their bodies onto the rocks
with their knees still shaking,
their teeth still protesting against
each other.
I am afraid the way I was
when I dipped my toes in the water
long enough to hear them scream,
afraid of the bottomless, afraid it wasn’t
bottomless enough, couldn't see.

Just afraid enough to jump.
Just cold enough to breathe.

Finally I have done what you do. I did it
by sitting down and starting to try.
It turns out anyone can draw a bird.
What other talents belie?
It turns out not just any feathered thing
can fly--

I flip from about the author to the dedications
again, but I'm sure I like
an appropriate balance of looking
back and staying here. I break
Passover when it coincides with your
birthday this year. When the snow
melts to reveal the leaves with crunch
preserved, and they dance in the
storms that make birds cling,
I welcome back the dead
while I breathe the living.
When the weather vane tucks
in its arms to gain momentum I watch
it spin, but I never spin myself until I hear
the rain tell me it is copying the comet--not
falling, but reaching for grounded like
imagination after I close the book.

The no-two-snowflakes
phenomenon set my brain
off into a million different
fragments of star, each
looking down on the world
from afar.

You were already up
there, just waiting
to tear
it apart, or maybe not.
You didn’t need sweet
tea so you swirled in
apathy where I took
honey, and you turned
to the screen while
I watched the sheen
of gold
protecting little pockets
of air like they were
all that mattered.
If I protected you that way
you’d say you weren’t
worth my time.
No time is worth
anything, when you’re
going to run out.

Run out to where?

We took still lives in
photography but I couldn’t
bring in honey or pockets
of air or the raindrop
that froze on the airplane
window with ice shattering
and spiraling up around
it, but with the intent to
put the stardust in everything
I touched I arranged
the things for us
since you had something
kind of maybe more important
to do.
You like orange, right?
Yours still looked better
than mine.

Your mind is still in flight.
I wonder if you see the
fragments of ice
on the window of the
emergency exit row.

So snowflakes are no different
than fingerprints,
and neither is made
of stardust bright enough
to make sense
to you.
We’ll all be up there
soon enough, you say.
Whether stardust
or dust.
You love Mersault,
in an indifferent sort
of way.

But I zoom in on these
oranges and the ridges don’t
match, the RGB codes of
every combination of
orange shadow are off
by a letter
and no two oranges are
the same, I take two
photos without moving the camera
and yet something’s
changed.

It takes conscious effort
for me to be the type
of person I’d be friends with
but you do it so easily.
And if you recognize
that as unusual, it’s
one of a kind
just like everything else.

No two anything.
No matter what I look
at, it’s
still life
and I’m still living it.

It’s a hard choice.
You made the same one.
But it was different.

Look up.

All week
they have been predicting
thunder storms.
Each day I checked
the news and grabbed
my raincoat
off the hook
on the back of the door
before walking through.
Outside the flash
of every turning car’s
headlight shoots
the gun that starts
the race—
my heart is off.
All week
when a squirrel snaps
a twig I cringe
and tuck my ears
into the collar
of my jacket
but there is no boom.
There are only clouds
and humidity.
All week
I’ve been waiting
for the sky to crack.
I’ve been
waiting for a heart
attack that’s worth
my while.
I am not ready
to breathe
the moisture in the air
but hang my coat
up dry.
To realize I
am not excited
to see you.
But there is no boom.
I am just the fool
who covered her ears
for nothing.

From the sixth floor on a Sunday
night you can see
the snake of green

lights switch to red, cars
jarred back a hundred
times stopped in tracks.

There is the jolt
when the robin's egg
cracks in my hands

that is the **** motion of waking
up from falling backwards. There
is the second hand, second

law of thermodynamic
arrow of time, the red
leaves want the earth

beneath them and sooner die
than go back up. There is sitting
cross-legged next to a jigsaw

waiting to see
why one can only wait
in one direction.

Of course, you can see
the traffic lights change
on other nights too,

but Sunday is the one I'm thinking of.

The bridge between us
stands in the wind stoic
with indifferent strength,
resigned strength.
Static trusses of steel
bear the load without a sound
as forces crack through it
and propagate to the ground,
like how the lightning through your
mess of veins
is grounded in the rubber soles
of your sneakers.

We are stalling, looking for veins
in everything to prove our alive.
You see a dragonfly’s wing
on the floor
and I see anything I want
in the stars in a patch of sky,
and then we each take one
step forward and I wonder why
I’m the one who trips.

The bridge is strong.
Nothing can go wrong but
every bar is under stress,
yours in tension and mine all compressed
and the bars don’t move but
underneath is a storm of forces
pushing and pulling,
tugging heartstrings,
plucking them apart like you
pluck the dead wings off the dragonfly.

We each stand on our ends looking in.
Bits of dry skin drift around,
form fairy dust in the street lamps,
slowing light down until it spills along
at the quaint speed of sound.

you used to believe in fairies

I don’t see how you stopped,
not while every cell of yours that dies
is swept into a particle current
that gives buoyancy to fairy flight

If we jump off this bridge
instead of across
we will not fall

The bridge between us
stands in the wind stoic
with indifferent strength,
resigned strength.

Static trusses of steel
withstand without a sound
as forces crack through it
and propagate to the ground,
like how the lightning through your
mess of veins
is grounded in the rubber soles
of your sneakers.

We are stalling, looking for veins
in everything to prove our alive—
a dragonfly’s wing on the floor,
a leaf’s venation,
the Arabic graffiti lost in translation
on the railing
and the rivers creeping
outside their contours.

Your lips are turning blue in the storm.

The bridge is strong.
Nothing can go wrong but
every bar is under stress,
yours in tension and mine all compressed
and the bars don’t move but
underneath is a storm of forces
pushing and pulling us at once
with the cold magnets
of the poles of the earth.

If we jump off this bridge
instead of across
we will not fall

Gnats are just a nuisance,
Mosquitoes are a threat,
Fireflies are a fleeting try
At remember instead of forget.