there is all this tissue before
The Heart

poorly guided fingers     Reach
turning stones in their wake
freeing half-formed ideas

wading through
pools of inhibitions and
Fear and --
then

there is a Sunset

cheek-to-cheek with Missouri hills in the distance, tickling wildflowers with
bated breath
as you        
       Approach

there wasn't much of a struggle, only
a few words exchanged, one
shot fired      and

no one died.

my body remains, but I lost
my dominant hand, my left
foot

I learn to write again --
my hand grows steadier
with practice each
day

I lean
a little more to the right
than I used to

& the view from my window has changed.

from the first kiss of the day
to the last kiss at night
we smirkingly wring the grey waters of
Logic & Reason
from our Passion
(so that it smells like
newly-washed old
bed sheet
deeply rooted in  
Hole-y Memories
Faded 'I love yous'
Nostalgic 'We've done this befores'
and
Hopeful 'Let's do it agains'

where will your eyes lay me ?
on the edge of our bed, where years have folded our skin together
in a filter of light

or in some dark place that has yet to find us
in the damp afterplace of things unresolved--



I picture you turning,
my transgressions braided, trailing behind as your steps grow more and more    sure.


               --last

in  hibitions
these little horses we have yet to
re-saddle

                   --ride

beige sits in your skin, layers in
various shades. sometimes I mistake it for
pink, in the shadows

but no
mostly just
beige

--void

last night I had a poem inside me, I lost it on the highway
in the Christmas of red and white continuous light
on either side

there were other thoughts, in other cars - their webs spun & ready

the wind beat against my window, holding the tail of it --
"there's still time"  

but I just looked back at you, driving.
hands sure, your unsmiling lips somehow
still holding,
kind.

and remembered this sizzling, poppin' n' fizzing
feeling

and could have written
pages and pages and instead
just

burned

I want to lay blankets over your head,
Hold a flashlight while you read my palm, my wrist my elbowmybreasts
I want to pay homage to your chest and
It's many rhythms, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4
Whatever, I don't know anything about timing,
Or I would have met you 6 years ago,
Before she broke your heart so that by now perhaps it may have grown
The size of this room we share
Instead, for now I'll hear you out in whispers

and in quiet
     morning conversations

new day,
old men and

every hour
retains their listless exhaustion;
half-hearts beat in their chests.


"The sky is bright today," I say, making
small talk.

"Don't worry, " he says through a concrete smile,
"we're tinting the windows tomorrow"

dressed in shadowed blues,
ashed hues


you sigh --little whisper of wind from your
caves and you think it is
the deepest your chest
will ever sink

don't know how you sit,     curved in
with that            !sky overhead

like children in church
you make me feel the dangers of
a simple whisper,     heads turn
slow burn

feel it hot on skin, deepening as the stare sets   in

haze    lifted,

lipped oh's, pink
hope and
shiver-syllables,
gone.

I wish sometimes
and sometimes I
forget I have the ability to
wish.

I hope sometimes and
sometimes the idea gets caught
on the way up my
spine

I can re-focus my eyes a million times
and still see only the smile that spreads like butter on hot
toast

you seem a combination of
all the love poems I've ever written      the various parts
of those I have loved, and the parts which
I have not

and you are in every morning, every morning
you have in you; the only reason        for which  
                                                         ­             I wake

I'll take your breath in
my lungs,      have it ready for la petite mort

your many
little
deaths

exhale &giv;; you
la vie     again,

there's a picture of sunflowers, my favorite
by far. one
leans apart from the congregation, rests
it's head on a wooden fence.
a visible sigh in it's face

it's posture affects --
and though time accelerates,
there is still gold in the lines of my face,
some days    the light catches

and warmth Ihold in my pockets
for days like today, I drizzle it on my tongue.

&my; insides are wrapped in dusty glow
from eons before
I began to wilt

there are pocket s
of time  we use
to crawl inside one another, sleep like we would
have never known the difference, before       /after

& our excuse is
the skin of our hands meeting that of our thighs and
we are all at once a giant        sigh, together

we come, beautiful,
in the moment s like this,

we shift,

like this
like this

, I want more
your cradling arms, your
pushagainst, small brush in passing
that sends a warmth crawling    up      my neck

as much as I am young & new
and pink and yellow just as bright as
a daisy! sometimes

I long, too
for the softness of longevity
like wind on my cheek, you

are almost all light, sometimes, I never
expected--

somedays, I'm sure the hue of your skin is
all filter, and I am just romanticizing,
as always

but the red in your beard is all the harshness in the world, sometimes.
and the sound of your laughter fills my head, echoes as if this small room
were an abandoned cathedral

and

your voice
the first prayer heard in a hundred years.

your skin is not animated as I would have   imagined, a little
freckled, bespeckled with blemishes but I don't
mind those -- only the way your mouth is so pink after kissing me,
only how your tongue blooms from the back of your throat.

you don't     differ from
any lover in any specific way, just
the after, and how I don't feel
cold. no, just
calm.

I hear no thunder, see no storm slow approaching,
but rain hits the pavement I stand on, which in it's solidity
impresses upon me the urge to run  -   but I won't just yet

left the lid off and it molded over
night, let it sit out a little too
long, the taste is a little off-- I hope you got my message.

my aimless fingers, are spinning webs of websof
whatif's
whatnow's
you

probably won't answer.

I have no direction, only
intentions and a bowl full of hope, Ihave
an extra   spoon.

a little past noon, now.

and I find I have trouble
taking you in all at once, there is
a pink-like hue   to all of your newness,
like I'm looking through
rose-colored glasses

like there is always a 'Theme For A Pretty Girl Who Makes You Believe God Exists' playing in the background when you cross the street or
stand, waiting for a friend.

I'm not sure whether it is you I miss, or
the coffee-stained pages of music (at least
I thought it was music)     we made when
we were together.

I often over-romanticize, but
I just thought I'd ask, just thought
I'd see if the breeze I felt was
from an open door or
from the inevitable cracks around the door frame.

I just thought--
I don't know.

oh god.

sliced open, out the heart,
the pink of the citrus fruit.

Ate it like a monster.

every sooften, a day will wash over     leaving me
a little paler, a little thin ner

for the most part I crush it like a can and bury it in my chest,
pretend it's a necklace, wear a face to match
I'll take breaths so deep, but my chest won't move
up    or down, some days

I cut it into pieces, dangle it from the ceiling and watch it glint in the  
sunlight, some days

I pull it over my head like a blanket, and keep the dayshine
at bay, leave my limbs pale a little longer

somedays
it's almost a comfort

some days, It's almost as if
I breathe it as it
breathes me and

the wind we create together carries us
in it's length across
the valleys of our        
small universe

I like to think I have a little moon
behind my lips, that you
could reach in & pluck

and in your eyes, reflecting
the rare bits of light that slip through
the blankets we cover the windows
with

I never know whether to look away
or to let them fade  
in slow-     motion

wish I could push    when push is needed
keep a distance long enough and let the salt set
there is a bitter-
nesslike in the corners of my mouth
that I lick when you are too close,
your sweet becomes the air around me,
your sweet, dear

it is so much to
bear

if you pulled back my skin you'd find a layer of grey underneath.
there is nothing new in me, my blood no longer red my flesh no longer
pink just grey and worn parts like the paint thin upon an old metal dinette
set. no ash, for i have not burned, no
mold for nothing could live off of the nothing in me.

then again, there is a heavy in my chest that sits. i cradle it
with my throat (try to pushit   down) and in between
my ears again when i begin to fall asleep, it
urges no dreams but
i like the pressure on my
temples.

my lips, my cheeks like a layer
of icing on a display
cake.


every soft haired, long
fingers will pass me in strides, avert their eyes and
eventually they won't
see me
at all.

give me alittle warning, I could
have you  a little place cleared in my lungs
ready for whenever you need
to take a breath, give me a little
warning. I'll have you a
drawer space clear,
a fist's portion of my
heart in which to boil your blood and
a patch of sunlight in my window
for you to lie in,          bloom
                                   alongside
                                                 me

newspaper pages, leaving ink on my fingertips
a taste I can't get out of my mouth    & I can't re-bite that first bite.
rough, textured like the bottom of a swimming pool and all I want to do
is sit here. run my fingers over.  in the slowmoving distortion of sound and sight.         peaceful, not to know what exactly you're seeing, at first
what exactly you're hearing, at first
but you have to come up for air                          eventually

it's like I was tied to a post, never tried
to untie it, myself but

then your subtle hands
all over

and I was    ******
outand

in all this
space, love ly

can just spin, slower and slow er
until I find (read: believe) that
I don't need to
find

anything
to be
free

I just have to


be

you have a downward symmetry about you, your mouth rests a bit too deep in your
chin, so to speak, you
speak in skinlight   my eyes slow to
capture all of you at once, b eaut  iful

honey, you
could speak in deep tones, rich and creamy
hard to swallow but   just
another
bite

and yet your words bubbleout like brave
little warriors - they emerge in such
formation and
present themselves
, not to
question

wish I could breathe into your everyday.
givealittle, creating potential energy and sending a chain
of buds into  b l o  o   m

cradle you in my          soft palette
                                  a gentle hum, then
swallow you whole, let you sit inside my
throat for a bit, let you glide through just like
a dream out the back
of the neck

you are caught in the net of stars that hangs in my
peripheral
vision

you are b eami ng
like a beaut, you are
emanating the  
                              only  
                           things

and the slowly things  
and the drops goldenlike
that fall from your mouth          kiss the cement
                                                     when you
                                                        speak

days are full of tulip lipping, like easy slipping of the
fingers through theory strands, soft-soiled land
    dip      yourself in

nights are littlesilver
slivers of one another, getting smaller and then larger
and then smaller again

push all the air out – roll me up
so that I can cradle all of my solidity(as if it exists at all) and
stay in one place, perhaps grow roots there, as well
and begin to notice the slowly things, the tid bits, the every aspect in
the every eye about this    one    place. Watch it change and mourn it’s

yesterday as if it were a dear friend.

the blue&purplelike;
is brush and stroked lightly so, my sister's
painting is brand new, ev'n though her
fingers have since threaded her through continents and
many a limb once thought dead, and then there was
atinglin'

no matter where my compass points,   the north is always new, and
my sister's blue never ages; only gradually does it grow dark in some
places, only over time does it     deepen and
                                                      settlei­n, cozy


nice n' clean, smooth on the surface but it goes
                deeper than you
            could imagine

today i fell in love with every face that didn't look away when we made eye contact, godjust lean down and (stoopinglike stone arches) lay heavy kisses that ground me so, just so i can stretch my toes and my neck through and pulling every nerve to it's end just
kiss you, too

if I could, I would draw the back of every
time she turned away from me - her hair and how it met the base of the skull and repelled
downward or climbed back up, she'd cut it short and then
watch it grow,            

if I could, I would re-trace her ears and marvel at how the skin joined in perfect harmony behind them. if I could, I would have had her a million times more in between my fingers, running them through her - everyevery I have
and had and
will have.

i am comforted in my own. just like ice melts, only not so
warm, just warm     enough. lay like a leaf in the sun, holding up lace so that
when i lower it the pattern will be burned into my cheeks, intricate enough
so that people will have to lean inclose
to see

i am ever-changing, like forever-ever, like no mona lisa because
'bullets pass through me and I keep moooooooving'
only the bullets never reach me - i know i'm dreaming when i'm
dreaming.

maybe you can feel me,               the clunk
in my chest                                    in yours

the drop                                    
                                                       in your
                                                        diaphragm

maybe you can see it,                   seeing
my eyes open as open                  your
                                      ­                 eyes
                                                

maybe you can hear it,                is
the hum inside my                       from your
                                                       mouth


maybe you can think me            as I
                                                       think
  ­                                                     you

pale
speech

the floor is covered in ash, we trudge
through to the kitchen to pour ourselves some coffee,
then to the bedroom to lay in the empty space there, left

our hands are never clean, our feet are always cold and
we don't have enough sense to cover them.

heavy faces, giving off sawdust smiles and
big red-marked cheeks from leaning too ******* other people.
we are craning over one another, reaching past one another, never holding
eye-contact

it's the emptiness left
from the previous emptiness
here, it's

awful here,
it's awful
here.

my love is in this place;
runs through it like
blushed
cheeks,

and the wind carries our laughter.

it helps to cradle your own, in the crook of your elbow like
a catch in the throat, like pulling off a sweater's static cling and
stripping down to nothing but a a set of teeth for eating and
a set of eyes for tearing up when you feel human enough

inlove with a girl who breathes like
snow so light, it is almost
nothing, nothing at all

inlove with a girl whose skin rubs against mine as
a tongue fondles peaches(cling)

inlove with a girl who sighs like the crest of a wave, falling
to meet the rest of it's body(russsshh)

inlove with a girl whose move-
ments collect eyes like her hair collects
rain or her toes collect sand

inlove like I am
inlove, like I am
inlove

this escapes me like the sigh escapes through the
teeth, feeling lucky to have been breathed
so it can graze lips
and finally d i  s    p       e            r                     s                                      e

into
the
                                                                ­                     e
            at                        s                        ­    
                  mo                                r
      ­                                           phe

there is no blood rush in this, there is no
heel-over-*** worship, waiting like
an obedient dog

we are getting old, coma-
tose, we are getting more
lace-like and fragile as we
go
go
go

races and
heavy everyday footfalls, good
practice for when we
lose our
legs

I will not end for you, no.
I will begin, and I will keep
on beginning.

I will lick peach juices from
my fingertips like mama's milk
dripping from the ****. I will wrap myself in
silk sarongs and stay that way for days,
marveling at the texture of my own skin.
I will run naked through the rain and
liberate myself in knowing that
what will happen will happen and
there is no safe way out. I will sit close
and listen. I will breathe water lying still
in a stream. I will eat poems for
breakfast and I
will slowly learn
how to die.

reachreach a
littlemore a
littlemore

closetoyou, closeto me

enoughtobe
close toyou

enough tobe
just
be.

the impression of everything
finally fit into the impression left by the first (as it always does) but

it was only the shallow end, and wonder goes
deeper, at least to the 6ft that goes over my head
(as it always does) and now

I am chopped into several different
pieces like the syllables in a word -- you've gotta
            
              sound
    
                me
            
               out!


you've gotta get me out
of the brain to the tongue to your
lips and teeth -- so sweet! the satisfying end to
one
big
word,



isn't it?

I'm up in knots again, today like
tug-of-war inside my chest like
little kids at recess - pulling, pull
ing but it never breaks because
who has upper body strength at age eight?

and tears like ringing a rag, can
never get every drop out.

and every day a bucket of water over my head,
head's so full my eyes could fall out, draw
out my sentences to fill the space between me
(at the top of the lungs like a
yawn perched, but it never rises)
and the space between you (I couldn't
ever fill it.)

the feeling builds and any way I lay
there's a pocket of my body to fill.

so I tuck my knees to my chest,
stretch my chin over top,
no escape, no empty space
curled up

like a newborn baby
so in the morning I
can re-learn how to breathe,
to speak and speak my mind

I can re-trust,
re-hope and re-
care.

breathe new air, just
one day's worth. so I can
re-position myself on the map,
point and say, "I am here!"

and feel it, too.

arms around you
like a sack of flour

curled up
     so delicate

I started
buttoning
my clothes,
hugging them
as though
cold.