the hydrangeas found your
face through the crack in the
sliding door, during the early
morning before our bodies
decided to sweat off the night
and the fan blew cool air up
the lilt of our shoulders
that rolled and pressed
like pistons--I forget what
we spoke about.

but i felt your skin beneath
my thighs and begged for just
one picture of you, like this
all day-old and dewy and beautiful
with the morning shining out of your
chest, aglow and gentle, just one picture
of you, like this,  just one picture of you

*like this

i used to write your name
on everything i said & saw
embraced the taste of
pulchritude i never knew at all
but just before the winter
blew its chills along my spine
i realized the truth was
never present in your eyes
so let this be the last
i ever say your name aloud
you'll live inside the
memories i'll send into the clouds
and time will put its seal
upon our broken heavy parts
i am not here for anything
i'm not here for your *heart

I'm always loving myself off

a precipice, hanging from the
c r a g s  by branch and string
wet down by s  e  a  and dried
by salt, the  w  a  l  k  here was
long in the tall grass that has no
trail where the  wind whets the
bluffs and steals my hair from its
hood so that I am my own maelstrom
a shred of black off the cliffs, incised
into the gray like my body is only an
o  p  e  n  i  n  g but from far off i am
just a whistle against the headlands,
sea foam and pine needles or
the grains of sand that
never settle.