Standing here, in 90-degree land
Where nothing is right
But the drink in my hand

Sweet saving coolness, fine eastern breeze!
I welcome thee warmly,
I welcome you, please

Stand fans may blow this languor away,
But I cannot stand
These bills I must pay

Summer is hot on my heels as I run
Through prickly white sands
– and the daydream is gone

In thick sticky air, seconds trickle and crawl
As sweat from my temples
To the sides of my jaw

The sun's got a fever and my blood could be boiling
I laze inch by inch though my insides are roiling
To be productive in this haze – this hell of a heatwave
But instead I'm in bed, just rotting and spoiling

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

249

Wild Nights—Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile—the Winds—
To a Heart in port—
Done with the Compass—
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden—
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor—Tonight—
In Thee!

She ruined you in the way
Water erodes rock
And time obscures memory.

She was the gentle fawn
That nestled within your contrived roots,
The soft fog
That embraced your unchanging peaks,
But went away
One season too soon.

Too soon,
She was the comet that shot past
And would only reappear in another lifetime,
The painted lady
That touched upon your concave petals,
And then took flight
One moment too soon.

She ruined you in the way
A woodpecker chips at trees
And watercolor makes inked lines run.

Too close,
You let her come too close,
Until you were tangent lines in an otherwise beautiful work of art.

Somebody had to go.

– so when she left,
She was ruined
   In the way human breath
   Makes pure water acidic,
And she ruined you
   In the way acidic water
   Wipes every detail
   Off the face of an architectural masterpiece

Time trickles down rocky faces.
The world is teetering on the edge of existence,
Its mountains sheared and valleys flooded.
She calls out night and day to ears deafened by
   The gears of progress,
   The clinking of gold,
   And the seductive voices of legacy and permanence.

But time trickles down rocky faces,
Wearing away the marks we fought so hard to leave behind...
There are whispers in the wind,
Echoes in the deep dark unknown:
   Only one thing will endure,
   Only one thing will not weather.

They were lightened by kindness;
For a soul once shown love
Always carries a little warmth
Into the coldness of forever.

Leave this haunted house
Leave this haunted heart
Take the light from my eyes
To guide you in the dark

Ease the words from my lips
And carve them into your bones
Interpolate into the blanks,
For these thoughts are useless alone

Carry me to the southern front
Where the crossfire raises hell
And let me lie with you on the ****** beach,
Among the silent shells

Our dreams are just stardust,
Just handfuls of stardust
Slipping through our fingers
But leaving glitter behind

Our potential is a sea
Vast and bottomless and blue
Just one stroke after another, and
You'll find yourself someplace new

I wish the world would stop turning
For a while, for a moment or two
And we could breathe and smell the flowers
And pretend all our dreams came true

It was a simple mistake but you burned your hands
A step out of time in a synchronized dance, but you
Slid off the edge and into a trap
Because once you're a sinner you can never go back

It was a look at the sun one second too long
A note slightly flat in an almost perfect song, but the
Discord rang out in the depths of fate
And now the damage is done and you're a little too late

Artificial, yet an artisan,
Pontifically partisan,
She raised her eyes to heaven high
And chiseled my heart with steady hands

She carved her own intricate façade,
And painted her mask to earn applaud,
Beneath her father’s right-wing feathers
Brought up to pray to his decreed god

He crowned her with his finest gems
To show her off to all his friends;
Helped her gild herself with gold
An aristocratic wright in the truest sense

“But I specialize in counterfeit,”
She said, as I saw under the definite
And skillful strokes, the expert notches,
A messy sketch yearning to freely acquit

“Then be free,” I said, as she let me in
Her atelier. So I scraped from her skin
The china-doll gloss and regal glitter,
And drained her blue blood of cyan tint

She smiled—the laughter lines made cracks
Through lips of plaster and cheeks of wax
I took the gleaming jewels from her eyes,
And saw new life glimmer in rolling tear tracks

She was a tempest of color, splattered and spilled
A muse incarnate that could not be stilled,
Chaos unveiled, but beautifully alive
With soul redeemed and freedom fulfilled

Please, I've forgotten
how to hold a pen, she said.
Those were the words that
convinced me to write a letter
from a stranger to a stranger.
So this is a message to you
from her.

She's asking how you're doing.
She wonders if the stars are brighter where you are.
You know,
there's a meteor shower coming
in a few weeks' time, she's
she's asking if you knew, and if
you'd watch it with her at eleven in the evening the Saturday after the next
so she'd feel like you were right there beside her
pointing out which streak held the most brilliant color
and if you're asking,
she's doing fine.

She's wondering if you know
how silkworms spin silk,
because a friend asked her the other day
she didn't know how to reply except by telling herself
that you would've known, so
how do they spin silk?
Let me know as soon as possible, she says
my friend wants to know.
But I think she's asking that as an excuse to hear your voice
but also because she really wants to know
how silkworms spin silk
and if you think jade is the nicest kind of green
or if you prefer hiking or swimming
if you agree that innocence is just untested character
and if you're asking,
she's longing for answers.

She's hoping you don't think of her,
and she's hoping you do.
She wants me to tell you that
she wants you to remember
but she wants you to forget the pain,
so might as well forget everything
because hurt is the price of loving someone.
She confesses that she's tried to stop
writing about you
but every time she sits down to
write her soul into words
your memory slips in and dances off her pages
and she tries to stop it
and if you're asking,
she's trying to find ways to make thinking about you easier.

According to her,
she's quieter now
not just her mouth but her feet,
her hair
her eyes
her spirit
Look at what you've done, she says.
I

I've always been a terrible liar.
Please, I've forgotten
how to hold a pen.