A star on the tongue
would taste like champagne,
fizzing, floating, unfurling
in blossoms of bubbles,
ribbons of rapture.

And champagne flutes
should sound like Songs
of Solomon, sung in hollow,
hallowed halls of grace
and grandeur.

And notes in marble halls
should hang, trembling like
a hummingbird’s heartbeat,
a flung feather
drifting into heart’s desire.

And your hand on my heart
should charm my veins,
flicker up through my eyes
until you see my soul,
waiting for you.

My hands are cold.
The blood doesn’t settle there;
my fingertips are empty.

My fingertips are empty.
If a butterfly kissed them,
I wouldn’t feel it.

I wouldn’t feel it if
you told me goodbye -
my heart is a scar.

My heart is a scar.
It struggles to beat,
trapped in longing like that.

Trapped in longing like that,
it’s hard to watch you.
You warm my heart.

You warm my heart.
I want you to warm my body as well.
My hands are cold.

I flashed and flickered when I was young.
Now my years have stretched my rays.
Cretins stared through hollow scopes
And showered me with unearned praise.
Now my heart begins to fade,
Dying down like burned-out coals.
Emptiness expands my night. And
Some shall ask, “Do stars have souls?”
Could I but cry I’d shed a tear;
Eternity has refused to stay.
Night, my home, shall send me off
To twinkle somewhere far away.

We sat, legs spread,
on the glass-cracked hatch-backed beat-up cruiser
with fingers numb from cold beer bottles,

and billows of smoke swelled in the air
like nuclear mushroom clouds
but quiet.

And the voice of the crowd
echoed back to us in vacant ululations
from very far away

and what did the score matter anyway
when the sun valiantly battled the autumn breeze
and won?

And my hair whipped back in fire-tongues
and we held up our arms to embrace the sun
and we were champions.

The gauzy nightdress caresses her thighs
as her bare arms, trembling feet defy
the gnawing, gnashing wind.
The world hangs below,
teetering on the edge of a cliff.
She turns, back to the open air;
taxicabs panic below her.
She tilts, arms whirling like pinwheels,
and falls into freedom.
Serenity, it seems, is found in flying,
if only for a moment.

My feet are stuck:
tacked down like so much carpeting
and the clock is fast and slow
and frozen and returning to the same place
too quickly for the eye to consume.
And behind my head whirl and blur
And twirl and slur a dozen blades
thrown like so many cutting words
at my poor preposterous head.
And my steps are slogging,
syrup poured up to my knees.
And my arm outstretched
in (silent) desperation
cannot find what it seeks,
which may be realization
or escape,
but either way is battered
like so much cake
by those lexicographic knives.

Your shirt is musky.
It slides off my shoulders,
narrow like bird wings
to your bear-size breadth.
The sleeves fall well past my wrists
and into my fingertips,
curled to catch you.