Bridges,

trains,
balloons, ships,
sails, colored glass, snow on the beach,
frozen water, words, language, music, subways,
typewriters, books, photographs,
swing sets, ink,
dust motes,

sunshine,
rain, snowflakes,
tunnels, streetcars, imagination,
memories, silence, sound, shadow puppets, candles,
flames, wax, communities,
comfortable situations, spiral staircases,
camaraderie,

old phones,
wire connections, written letters,
traveling, discovery, robots,
plants, flowers, clouds, grass, breeze,
shadows, running water, warm blankets,
bicycles, seasons,
change,

sunsets,
sunrises, the horizon,
mirrors, time, living without time,
living within space, living, breathing, seeing, hearing,
touching, tasting, smelling,
being reminded of something vague by a scent, poetry,
Kerouacian conversations,

abstractness,
friendship, love,
thoughts, beliefs, emotion,
movement, ages,
beginnings,

endings.

This country sky is growing a light
Casting shadows across the fields
     Like the ones across your body
That I have explored to the edges
The ones I have hidden in
     Held warm in your belly button
And kissed one last time before morning's full bloom

The drive From my place to yours
Affords me the perfect amount of time     
     to wonder
Winding through countryside
     Windows down
          Across farmland
               No radio
In those fifteen minutes I have all the time in the world
     And could drive forever
I light a cigarette
Which you still don't know I do
And I am lost in thought and breeze
Ten miles of silence
     I could stretch it forever with you
Driving back to my apartment
My hand on your knee
The horses roll by
And I never want to arrive

These words are hot
Fresh from my fingertips, raw and unrevised
Like drops of molten glass from a furnace
These words burn up my throat as I am breathing flames and steam
My heart, like a bellows, forcing syllables across my tongue
They burn and itch
Inside and out
Days, weeks, and years pass
And these fires still burn inside me
Flaring with the passion of a little boy who has not had his last question answered yet
So he screams and yells and stomps his feet
Trying to put out the question inside of him because it is burning
And he’s afraid that if he opens his mouth, to let it out, the whole world will be set ablaze with his question
And he is waiting patiently, with his hand high in the air
Hoping to God that someone will call on him
Hoping that God will call on him, and offer him an answer
God, extinguish these flames!
I am burning with all the passion of a little boy who will never know the answers     
     to all the questions he cannot ask
Because he does not know the words to describe his thoughts
Because he cannot paint pictures with nouns and verbs
Because he still only speaks half English and half God
So he is coughing flames until he finds the words to ask the question whose answer will put them out
And with the fire of God inside me, I hope I will never learn the answer
I will always be searching for the words to my question
And I will always be asking questions
And I pray to God that I will never know the answers

The Cheshire cat-like moon
Swung low above the beach,
O’er darkened midnight dunes,
‘twas barely out of reach.
When from the salty sea
Arose its mirrored frown.
We rose up by our feet
And hung there upside-down,
Suspended in the sky
Amidst the twinkling stars.
We kissed there, you and I,
Fell downward with a jar,
Then I awoke and found
Us both in sheets ariled.
I kissed your crescent brow
And slept again awhile.

For years, I imagined what you must look like
Images would flash on the back of my eyelids
     in the time it took me to blink
And as time wore on, they adopted the detail
     of a perfect figure
Line and curve, in and out
Contrasting colors in all the right places
And I became distracted by these images

Still time wore on
And I added flaws to focus
I pictured looseness and softened edges
So that I could continue to function
So that my heart would stop skipping a beat
So my breath would not be drawn so ragged
     every time I thought of you without trying

And last night, I finally saw you
In all your glory
Not in my mind, but in a room with violet lighting
And you and I shared the same air
And everything was perfect
The flaws I had superimposed
Turned out to be as imaginary
     as I thought the moment when I would find out had to be
And I felt your skin
Smooth and distracting
Nothing out of place
Line and curve exactly as they should be

And now, whenever I blink
That image of you appears in my mind
For an instant, and my heart skips a beat
Not because I imagine, but because I know
And the electricity flows from your hands into my bones
And I shudder at the memory of something so sweet
The moment we shared, so in tune
Everything followed the fantasy in my mind
And I can never imagine you with flaws
And for the rest of my days I will know how perfect your are
     in only your skin

On the quiet nights, if I lay perfectly still, I can hear my own blood flowing through my veins
Surging at irregular intervals, like an ocean finding its rhythm
And I think of how far this imperfect heart has brought me
And of the little girl it contains all the love in the world for
    And how her rhythm will be flawless

The little girl that speaks to me on frequencies between life and sleep
The little girl that's waiting for me to find her the perfect mother
So she can come into this world with my eyes and her mother's hair
    The perfect blend of two imperfect people
The little girl that I will teach to use both ends of the pencil
    But to remember the shadows the eraser leaves behind
The little girl whose smile will make my day
    Whose laughter will be the highlight of my week
         And whose words will be the greatest part of my life

I think of the little girl who will enter this world by the hands of her father
And the first words ever whispered in her ear will be a prayer
    Asking God to raise her with me, so that she can rise above me
This little girl will grow up amidst music and poetry, fingerpaints and clay
This little girl will breathe and her father's chest will be filled with pride
Because at that moment, I'll know that I've done at least one good thing to this world
And this little girl will always know that it's okay to have pudding for breakfast
    As long as you're willing to share it
And this little girl will always know that her father will always love her nomatter what
    And that this poem will always be there for her
         And with it, my soul

To a daughter who is yet to come: I will never stop loving you, I will never let you fall, and I will always be there to push you higher on the swings.