After the first felt tremor
warning it was time to go,
in your calm way
you took me out into
the penetrating night air
to watch,
as I,
naturally unprepared,
stood dressing.

Knucles cracking hard
Skin split bruised, enemy wall
Frustration released.

You failed to warn me
It was easier, better that way
For you maybe.

Time was your enemy
Stolen thoughtlessly
It continues to bully me.

Youthful memories fade
Becoming cloudy, unclear
Just splintered fragments.

I did not understand
You were fast asleep
Told to say goodbye.

They done the same
With tears streaming
Gave you my last kiss with a child's ignorance.

I had to sell the cottage
and lose the gestures
of wind on water,
the names
of flowers and trees.

Time runs out, traffic
snarls, sirens wail. I
stare, confused, frail
as faces dissolve
in fog and mist.
I forget names now
and how to move.

If I had a map of your body,
I would erase all of the places I love.

So that I could never get hurt,
and I could never hurt you.

You would float off the page,
and I would fly too.

Souls intertwining above, scattered from erasures
below.

Collect your favorite body parts and
Etch-a-sketch them together.

Before you get too attached,
shake the pieces and restart.

Hardest among parts to find is the brain.
Easiest, the heart.

You didn’t break my heart,
you broke my brain.

And now all I can do is process you,
think about what we did,
and what we won’t do.

If I had a map of your body,
I would erase all of the places I love.

In the hanging kitchen, the smell-
cut cayenned sausage, ejective tomato slices
the whole thing in the back of the throat, inflamed.
Olive oil. Vinegar. Billie talks about her "girl
friend." She lives in Mayfair. (Almost pretty;
don't look too long.)

At times I feel sick.

American man he
strikes the figure of a half-God
broad-shouldered, burned
he does Not exist, John Henry
split his bust long ago and we
are huddled small boys imperfect
in the dust of his legacy.

Our fathers stood from dinner tables kissed
wives were kissed by children one last sip of old
wines and walked into the night looking
for burned-up lamps, the memories of mountains.
Ate stone. Drank mist.
(A thirst for adventure is close to your heart.)
Fell into the grit, the failure, fell
into everything.
(Little else has taste once the spice of life is on your tongue.)

I have nothing but my understanding.
I want to be swaddled, paralytically blind, shamelessly loved.
Or to go out in the wicker
world, there to find whatever our best
died looking for, tigers or ruins or
a life after adventure.