I watch the *** of cool water
slowly boil -

a bubble, five bubbles, seventeen, and more

and if only I could multiply,
I could watch each bubble
die as it were born

but I am at the stove
with my two hands, my two eyes
and my one brain, and my sole life

that never seems to make good
fast enough in time

I am tired of patience
I am tired of waiting
for water to boil

I am boiling on full flame
just watching the water giggle at my toil

and if I could simmer down
I would, but I don’t

because I was born boiling
and it will always be so

the bubbles appear and they vanish,
taking thoughts as they go

here they come,
there they go

My cat has learned
to love my kisses -

cats don’t kiss -

somehow he learned
that it’s a good thing.

All anybody, any lovely, can do
is to embrace the love they’re given,

and I can’t take it -

how few of these good things
do we find?

Why does a good thing
hurt to find?

In this winding one-way street,
I sent for the fire brigade,

a couple years too late,

a couple years
too young to know
how to dial a telephone.

the mahogany red
of these sticky beads,
they stick to me
and stain the sheets,

even here in bed,
even in my dreams,
clotting in my head -
a book that won’t be read
words printed large and wide
as the blinding of dread

could I make out a letter?
backing up on the bed,
hit the wall with the back of my head,

peeling, scraping the scabs off
old wounds I don't know how to tend

just once, could I
peel, and feel
my skin again?

last summer
when it began
the air wafts of its smell again

and I can’t remember any other summers
before the one I’ve spent with you

only a day here and there -
in fact I don’t remember much
of any of these seasons

every extra hour
we rewrite
the way the winter chills down to my bones
the way the rain sounds when it falls
the way the short-sleeved shirts come out again


this might just be
the longest year I’ve ever had

and now I’ve been through
almost every season with you

still, our summer never ends


I like to tell the story
of how we both heard the same song
and tried to Shazam it -
mere happenings in parallel,
two years apart

and I don’t believe in fate
but I do believe in
the coy humour of coincidence

how our summer never ends
because we took the sun
and shared it between us

how the song Summer Girl
has nothing to do with
a girl wanting to be anyone’s anything

at least not to me

inside the shell
I heard the emptiness
of my ear canal

cracks in the pavement
stepping with my eyes closed

the ghosts under the dinner table
have nothing on
the skeletons in your closet

have nothing on
my lack of superstition
and the squid ink you deposit

over oceans
around me

say I never could, so I did
say there’s no such thing as love
so I go ahead and make it