aspirations beget
lucid, sea-struck moonlight;
emanate your kind regret—
soar with the painted moonflight.

a sordid smattering
of damp drift, draft
notices littered
among handwritten receipts

what do you know,
of vomiting in an ex’s
bedroom, rivers
staining the topography
of your skin

1680

Sometimes with the Heart
Seldom with the Soul
Scarcer once with the Might
Few—love at all.

the metal is poised:
upright, red, defiant.

the glow is muted,
inhuman    /.
       the garden
is tired; it asks for
forgiveness.

the metal is poised:
the leaves disperse—
frightened./
       the valleys crawl into the sky.

the metal is poised:
you’re/     like a dusty,
aeroplane
window: i see home falling
away
       away
              away)

I’ve

seen love

In movies, viewed parting

lips, glances

through a glass—

To know:

I’ve never felt

the heartbeat of another

sync alongside

mine

But my

mind, it holds

Skin, salt, of sea

waves who may feel the scratch

ofthe sand for-half

A second, to then

be dragged

away,

how many,

I ponder, are alike? It must

be an ocean wide,

those

For whom this

ache is commodified. I fear—I am

A blossom, bearing

fruit, which knows

it will fall

soon;

It is but a

matter of time before

I am crushed

underfoot... .

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet--
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

yesterday, she
woke to the waving of
the grass

—bitter, golden,
lovable—

and she swept
the ridges and crests with
sunsets and understanding

like a feeling
of waving, waving
away.