Your old card,
"You're My Person"
creases in my hand.

The note is so sweet
it ruins me; my nose
spots blood, I cry so hard.

Even if I put it down
& only touch it
with my mind

it wrecks the afternoon,
a hammer-handle
between the eyes.  

Yet I can't even file it away,
still less remove the pastel
from the black chess mantel.

It's part of me,
stowed deep in the heart,
like a blade the doctors
are afraid to remove.

I also sent cards,
filled with adoring scrawl,
Turkish slices,
raw pianissimos of love.  

I wonder if they split you, too.
I don't know what we are,
only how I feel -

you are the root
of gladness.
My hair still burns

when I think of you.
I am committed to the dark
chancels of your thoughts.

I may be shackled to the white blot
of Washington, but the blood
specking whorl and loop
erupts from Dublin.

Consider this, then,
another card,
sent to you across
cerulean cavity

all the way to your
necklace of river.  
You're my person.

As always, my honey,
I close with
kisses and hugs,

knots and crosses:
"xoxoxo"

You rolled across
my body and
soul,
working the
aches out of my
tired back.
This poem won't
behave.
The writing streak
is over.
I know that
all good things
must come to
an end.
The sidewalk
cracks,
the glasses break,
both bull and
matador die.
And when I lie down
at night
on the living
room couch,
the ten steps
to your bed and
to your heart
seem like
a thousand miles away.

Salt crush,
brown rubble
of eye.

Honey low,
string sob
on cheek.

Send sweet,
spun tongue
in tow.

Left spent -
night stop,
black brake.

By dawn's five
I'm hers
all again.

The rosy-fingered dawn
  bleeds excitation
and atmospheric trails
  for seeking out tomorrow

Are these stars like rain?

  Emitting imagination,
  refracting suggestion?

Perhaps a new art form swimming
about as cloudbursts?

In undulating waves
  war and peace
are colliding out from
  the center of the sun

Could they be
messengers from heaven?

  A signal from God?

Perhaps at magnetic midnight,
four horsemen shall ride?