Love, please tell me
where to cast my life -  

The ivoried downtown
and sleeted piers

of Washington,
where the Potomac

sleeps itself blue,
& the rows of museums

pull coffee teeth
in a closed afternoon?

Or the northside quay
& green garden walls

of Dublin, where I walked
in your hand, eyes to brim,

out to Phoenix Park
to search for the fallow deer,

but finding instead
only a debris of wind?

I'm owned by neither:
I wake each day

into a dead space
without color or shape,

only these memories -
do you remember

leaving yoga on
Connecticut Avenue,

the petrichor winding
out the night's full flower,

the nuzzling shine
of the walk?

I don't care
where it happens,

but that's what I want,
every day,

those steps home with you;
every ******* day.

The morning is mine
when people are asleep
Sun and I talk
Birds say their greetings
when passing by
I wash oils off my face
scrub the night off my teeth
I open the windows
—the war rages on

I boil milk and blend in
some coffee
she runs down my throat
burning and waking all
of my snoring folks
Sloshing, she plays in
my arid stomach
—the war rages on

I put on some music
Arabic flutes and gentle drums
and open my books
I read a passage,
then read again
—the war rages on

I reread the passage
What are they saying, I
write it down,
I rewrite, then cut
—the war rages on

—the war rages on
I could scream or tear
apart this book, break this
cup where an abyss now sleeps
jump off, I could.
oh, dear vultures, I could run
away, away, away, and
wither on the way. Oh wither!
but I hide under sheets
and wait for sleep to come

Mercifully, she does.
she always does and I
will wake up and gulp some coffee
and reopen the book
reread the passage, reread
rewrite, rewrite, cut
—and the war will rage on.

I still see you
laying in the balled dark,
moon-pretty,
pinkish ache,
webbed in lash.
I still hear you
& fall in swoon
when you tell me
in Turkish
that your little left hand
is still sleeping.
O darling...
I stand in the doorway
& let my heart *****
to your ghost.
You're here and not here.
How can I sleep like this,
on a bed so pricking with memory?
In this slush of shadow,
this leavened night breath,
your absence feels almost like love.

We slip-stepped
past snow sprigs
in Iveagh Gardens
to a castle of bread,
cheese, and red wine
topped to pink shell lip.
We talked a whole world over.

Yet two months after,  
you-don't-love-me:
though I know I felt it
glowing in that rose cage,
saw it on a wine-painted mouth
that smiled at me,
a smile of retrieval.

Remember the day
I met you at the airport
in July, at the start
of the four best months
of my life? Your eyes
carried the same regard
for me then, I swear it.

I just found
your writing
in the book
you lent me
after we met.

Your name
chokes me away
as it declines across the page
where you signed it,
claiming it.

O darling,
come home,
& take this pen.
I'll lay still
as you assert
your name over me
in your beautiful hand,
rift to rift.

---

I read your notes
one last time
before packing them
for Dublin
with your H&M scarf,
your New York sketch,
some paintings
I'm hoping you like.