I live
In America,
in a suburb by the woods
where the city is just a sneeze away,
but just too far to touch.
And the fireworks at the baseball games rattle my windows at night
and the 10:15 train rattles by
on time
every night

She lives
In Japan
in a little town by the sea
I was there once, among the rice and water
and we both biked to school.
And the cranes that loaded the massive ships loomed over our lives
and the hush of a small town woke me
ever
single
night

hasty poet scribbling
unwilling to wait
while the world sinks in.
and the poem arrives.

I gaze into the lapis lazuli embedded behind your eyes

And I read the words that are engraved on its pristine surface

“I hide in the dust of diamonds and bathe in Luna’s glow”

Inscriptions of a fiery passion from the heart of Aphrodite

What deities were praised to conjure such an immaculate apparition?

A vesper turned mortal by the north wind

Gilded in the feathers of seraphs-on-high

And garbed in the fineries of the seventh son of a seventh son

blushing oleander flowers beckon_inhale my dizzy deadly breath

brief cool green hour interrupted by sunrise_ pierced with waves of shimmering heat

last months magazines
a stack of uncertain time
that is collapsing
-tdf

pink-lipped Spring's pastel party dress slowly falling apart