Even the stars, they say, and worlds -- but first,
It's April rain, it's light on greening gardens --
One sparrow, yes, in book and branch -- then worse,
All memory of love, the heart that hardens,

Resisting still the news. Seasons, reversed,
All water, always, quick or slow, the snow
On fields, then farmers' woods and crops immersed
By river's-work, and floodplains' overflow.

All leaves, all trees, all earth by wind dispersed;
And men, men too, each falling long-rehearsed.

Dear…

I don’t even know what to call you. But, already, we are beyond such things, aren’t we? When you wander into my head from time to time and form to form I am left with out a course of action. Mostly because action seems… so… very…very… silly. But this time. I took said action. Here it is.

I am sounding this letter off of the sky as postage. I am licking my lips to seal the envelope and throwing my marbles into the sun. I am lifting you, without strings, with the last of my magic.

I am not sure how the universe will choose to eclipse or supernova our meeting. But I am patient. In the mean time, I will remain so.

But I thought you should know.

I promise you passion.
I promise you fire.
I promise you mood swings, and fights, and making up, and making love.

I promise you an insatiable hunger to touch you. Kiss you. Be with you. To a fault if you wish.

I promise you a less than perfect attention. I promise to get too caught up in my vision of you to notice you, from time to time. I promise to notice you, more often than not.

I promise laughing. Together and at each others expense. But laughing. And laughter. And cause for it.

I promise to be serious. And scowl. And furrow my brow and nod my head at just the right times.

I promise to picture you naked at the most inappropriate times. I promise to paint pictures of your smile on the back of my eyelids while I sleep. I promise to sleep next to you, feeling my body scorch as our temperatures press together in red patches of skin.

I promise you poetry. And wine. And both at once.

I promise you adventure. I promise you distant landscapes and matching our rhythm to the train we find ourselves in, watching the blue, gray, and green streak by our window like an exercise in futility and motion.

I promise you futility and motion.

I promise you faith. I promise you doubt. I promise you a clenched fist and an open hand. I promise you my shoulders to stand on and my frame to drink from. I promise you holding hands on midnight drives from place to place.

I promise you silly.

I promise you gifts and flowers for no reason. I promise you a constant reminder of my awareness of the gift of a woman that I have been blessed with.

I promise you breakfast in bed. I promise you all day in bed.

I promise you discipline. And craft. And becoming a master of loving you.

I promise you truth. And empty promise. I promise you the promise of more.

I promise to be artful. I promise to be delicate. I promise to be crass and a brute. I promise to regret what I have said, over and over. I promise you steadfastness through the changes as we learn to navigate the many tides of the sea we find ourselves drowning in together.

I promise to be your opposite and drive you mad. I promise to be your equal and touch you thusly.

And you. I promise to only allow you entry to my heart if you are what I know I want.

I am faithful. I am loyal. I will not fill your space with less than you.

And I’ll only ask that you be worthy of this.

And here is something shiny.
And red.
For you.
To wear.
As your own.

It is all I have.

My return address is on my palm, out stretched to you. I await the scent of perfume on the letter you will write in me.

Red and Shiny.
And worthy.

All My Love,
Sean

Turn off the lamp,
Switch off the fan.
Quiet these voices
Inside my head.
Don’t you lay here with me,
Don’t you tell me your lies.
Just let me sleep,
Alone tonight.
Don’t sympathize with me.
Because you can’t make me love you
If I don’t.
I can't force my heart to feel
Something it won’t.
It is dark in this room,
I can hear your words.
You make your case to me,
In this final hour.
But I don’t, no I don’t.
Because you can’t make me love you
If I don’t.
I’ll try to sleep,
Your face I don’t see.
It’s your body I fear,
When you’re close to me.
Sunrise will come,
And you’ll hold me tight.
Just give me some time,
To distinguish wrong from right.
And you can’t make me love you,
If I don’t.
Don’t you make my heart change
What it’s already been told.
In this dark room,
Your lasting words,
Begging for mercy
In this final hour.
But I don’t, no I don’t.
You can’t make me love you if I don’t.

letting her warm the sheets
of yesterday's beds,
time and time
and time
again.

Bedtime, little moonbeam.
See the stars? They're sleepy, too—
all blinky-eyed and snuggled in
like you need to do;

but the very, very moment
that you drift off into slumber,
the whole world sighs and smiles
at you, its dreaming little wonder,

and the bunnies in their hutches
and the sparrows in their nests,
they sleep, too, my little moon,
all fuzzy, warm and blessed

to have spent another perfect day
with a perfect girl like you.
Now tomorrow waits to meet you,
and I'll be waiting, too.

Out of work muse
seeks out of words poet.

Must love grammar,
discord, whole days lost
to plotting coups through bitten lips

and safe words drawn with fingertips;

should know to not break my heart
at night, when there are still
hours of emptiness to fill up with sorrow.

Available evenings, starting tomorrow.

What I wouldn't give
to know the comet tails of thought
obscured by your  ellipses …

I swore I would not write a poem for my father,
who hated poetry
and poets
and most things,

as though it would dishonor him—
his bookish daughter
who cried too easily;
who sat silently through dinner;
who slipped quietly from rooms
as he entered,

still thinking she was better than him.

Fifteen years later, 
I find myself in Boston,
rattling through cool tunnels
below the city of my birth.
I think I see him—
younger than he could have ever been;
but still, the white t-shirt,
the thin mouth,
the blue eyes that I did not inherit—

and what disturbs me the most
is not that I have just seen my dead father 
step out of a train into
the cool white, 
the great big;
it's that my first thought is

I hope he doesn't see me.

So I am trying to love him.
I am writing a poem for my father
who smelled like
cigarettes
and soap
and sawdust
and raised five girls on a quarryman's pay,

and I am crying,
but it feels different this time.

I entered through your garden gate;

a summer hush
no sign of us

just the grove of 
words
you grew
for her.

I returned home
a silhouette,
to tend my hothouse
of regret.

Little more than listless guests,
we play the game I-need-you-less.


Discord, missed turn, second guess;
things are different. Bitter? Yes.


Weary, naked– I'll confess;
you drew your hooked line through my chest


so meet me in your battledress
and if your blade finds  tender flesh,


I swear that with my dying breath
I'll say * "I won. I need you less."