a woman who stands
between day and night
with sunset hair,
and eyes the color of leaves
that will never know autumn
sees me standing in the slowly
dimming light of life,
words in the shape of a man.

your voice
like that of an angel
calling me to prophecy or worse, prayer
uses words that redefine me
like the lyrics of a memorable song
i can't even hum when you ask.
your slight accent
is faded by years
of wearing it in a foreign tongue,
like the colors of your favorite clothes
worn too often,
as i am all too often
worn too thin
by the heavy accent of your body in my thoughts.

you see me standing alone
between night and day,
an unabridged dictionary
of hope and despair,
being methodically abridged
by the great condenser of time
and his imitators,
as i am slowly reduced
to a man in the shape of words
like loved and remembered,
and later still
missed and forgotten.

Time shortens
like the fractured legs of a runner
accidentally propelled by the laws of physics
to decelerate like frozen matter.

The uncertain quantum leap from now to there
has no healing properties
just a void
a black hole of despair
swallowing up memories and joy
that even my little daughter
can only temporarily prevent....

She say's "I love you Daddy"
and I think about my own father
and the love travels like the
search for extraterrestrial intelligence
that goes unanswered
not because there isn't any,
but because we're never here long enough
to receive the answer.

Until I lose my voice
and no one listens
the unsaid words of love
will accumulate
inside me,
and will appear on my face
like the flashes
from an electronic sign
whose bulbs have all blown
except for two or three
intermittently appearing
like a code
that no one but you
understands.

Until I lose my mind
with no one's help
the unthought thoughts
will accumulate
and be sacrificed
like my greatgrandfather,
an Isaac who wasn't spared.
And I, an Isaac who was,
was born under the sign of the ram,
to be sacrificed in other ways.

Perhaps it's my memory
which troubles me
when I carry it around
like a chip on my shoulder,
waiting to have it carved
into a marble bust of Justice
in the hope that
something good would come of it.
Although in our time
the only thing it becomes
is its own caricature and nothing more.

Perhaps it's my memory
which doggedly trails me wherever I go
even when I wish to lose it in the hills.
I carry it
like a credit card
without an expiration date,
with a limitless line of available credit
extending back through the centuries,
to be summoned
at a moments notice to pay off any debt
no matter how ancient
for a pound of flesh can no longer
be considered good collateral for any loan.
Flesh has become cheap
as has life
and the interest rate is never
high enough to sustain
the sanctity of either anymore.

Your voice on the phone
is a provocation

Your appearance in the doorway later
is an incitement

It's not your fault

You merely exist

But it's too much for me to handle

So I ***** a wall
and even that is a provocation and an incitement
for I can't escape the knowledge of who's on the other side
with all my concentration
I redirect my thoughts away from this evil inclination
to ****** a secret peek that can't be secret
and I recoil in my guilt
asking forgiveness

from whom?

The moon over Rio
is upside down for someone who's only
ever given it thought from New England,
so while in Rio
I hang myself upside down
like a perching fruit bat
before it goes on its nightly
raid of Senhora de Andrade's hummingbird feeder.

I hang myself upside down
to see the moon as I'm used to it
and the blood flows to my head
accompanied by Gal Costa
and I right myself
return to  my senses
and hope that the local kilo restaurant
is still serving, otherwise
it's hummingbird nectar tonight.

Lily's lips are blue
it's time for her to read
on a beautiful day at the beach
while elsewhere scientists
are waiting with baited breath
for a landing on a distant world
in the search for something
that's taken for granted
here in the surf.