you were as sweet as a nectarine. i remember my first bite.

2. take me off your shelf; i want to be your favorite read.

3. i spoke you into the sunflowers growing out back in mason jars.

4. you were bourbon in a coffee cup. i was last sunday’s paper.

5. we spent one night in a park - our first waterfront vacation home.

6. your neck smelled like fresh dew on summer grass the last morning.

7. i wonder if i ’ll look at someone the way i looked at you.

8. you stopped touching me. i tiptoed around the eggshells from our
breakfasts.

9. 48.5867°n, 2.3508°e. you said we could run away here. je t’aime beaucoup.

10. we are cheap candles with quick-burning wicks. you hate yankee candle.

11. you blew me out into the ocean breeze with your american spirits.

12. "we were never in love, but, oh god, we could have been."

there was once
a genocide
in my heart,
outbreaks of riots
at my fingertips,
loose chaos
in my bones.

days to weeks,
weeks to months
months to years,
the wars raged
onward,
never falling back -
only charging on.

however,
the genocide
and riots
and chaos
have relinquished.

i survived
the apocalypse
that was
my own self.

besides
engrossing myself
in every
curve,
crevice,
angle
of your being,
i was
determined,
no,
steadfast
on learning
the miles
and miles
of ridges and lines
covering your
fingertips
and palms
as if
i already knew
it would not be
too long before
those same fingertips
would be
out
of my
grasp

the fading bruise
on my third knuckle
happens to be
the same hue
as your lips.

it looks
almost as if
you pressed your mouth
against it
once again.

god, i wish
that were the case.

your eloquent whispers
and intoxicating hymns
are just as beautiful
and are just as delicious
to both of my ears
as your breathy syllables
and slurred phrases

**** the rhetoric
in your words and voice

“she said,
‘almond colored sheets
are the best
for dreaming.’”

well, my sheets aren’t almond
but i did tend to dream
when you were lying
right next to me

The little boy unclenched
his sticky fist,
freeing his blue balloon
into the wide open sky.
"If you can fly,
then I shouldn't stop you,"
he said to the balloon
as it floated
                           out
                          ­           of
                                            sight.

thirty years
since Mark gunned you down
thirty years, passed
like a long sleepless night
that ends with taunting morning light
no brilliant sunrise grandly pronouncing
a glorious new dawn of man
although that would have been your plan
with your entreaties to give peace a chance
and imagine, imagine, imagine

now I kneel in this rain gray park
like a reject from some holy ark
a pilgrim in doleful disappointed pose
after seeing what your earthly brothers chose
was not to imagine a world of peace and love
but to wear reality like a cast iron glove
making mockery of your martyred chants
proceeding like a billion scurrying ants
deaf to your childlike pleas

across the soaked soil where your ashes lay
yesterday and today…and tomorrow
I feel the soggy sorrow
that you would have felt
if you could still see
all the rage of humanity