I.

Your comment came to me attached to an ad for condoms,
I was so tickled that I saved a picture of the screen,
So obvious a sign and one I was so glad to receive.

II.

When you were angry with me once,
Your message said, "I love you. But-"
I love you. Period. But.
A confession and an admission,
A statement of fact and then a feeling,
And I felt so bad but you loved me. But-,
And that was all I ever asked.

Pressing hard to my lips
The back of my wrist,
Saliva pooling thickly
As my stomach churns sickly-
Old habits dying hard,
And dead-set on
Killing me, too

I need desperately another mouth
To occupy mine
At times like this,
Scrambling kisses
That you'll break away from
To tell me smiling
What my teeth taste of today

Instead I'm ******* bruises
Into the thin skin of my forearms-
Idle hands, etc.-
And taking shuddering breaths
Until the impulse passes
Because six months clean
Is not one more thing
That this disease
Will steal from me.

The cool of the morning seems a temporary relief from the heat
rather than the end of the season
The dew already being wicked away through the breaks in the clouds
left over from last night's storm
Even as a Northern wind sends word of worse weather on its way

But the hands of the sun are as hot and insistent on your body
as those of a lover
And they hold you in the blissful in-between
in the honeymoon of August
Walking in and out of shadows to feel the summer and the fall

Your stillness draws me stalking still
Through redwoods, deadwoods, rotting trees,
With purpose, with intent to ****,
My love, you've made a wolf of me.
You called me to your forest heart,
I crossed in blood, put birds to flight,
I tracked you through the gath'ring dark,
Concentric circles, dying light.
But hunted love, what eyes you've got-
I thought them wide in fear at first,
When on your trail I followed hot,
But now they're looking dark with thirst,
And standing here, day fading fast,
Můj upír, love, I see the trap.

I want to ask you if you've ever seen grass
Move like the ocean
(I don't have to ask if you've ever
Seen the ocean;
There's emotion in your eyes-
There's a motion to your eyes
That lets me know you have.)

I want to take you mountain climbing.
I will give you rings that turn
Your fingers green
And I will marvel at the the chemical reaction
That is your skin.

I will drive with you for hours
Until we find that sea of grass
Because we are not two drops in
The ocean but two blades
Grounded but enjoying the breeze,
Rooted but

I mean.

Want.

I want, not I will, because I won't,
Because I don't know your name, quite,
And you could have a nickel allergy
That I don't know about.
You are made of things
Like that,
I know:
Things that I don't know.

Our friends called you a ghost,
But you were always a dove to me,
Hanging back, voice low,
A quiet presence
Or unnoticed absence.
But then you were that but at my side,
Consistently, and often,
A warm weight at my elbow
Pressed tight on too-small couches
Looking at my folded hands
At intervals throughout the movie,
And my breathing was artifice,
Exaggerated,
So every intake touched my arm to yours.
And I was surprised to hear you laugh
When you rarely had before
And I could pretend it was me at your side
That made it so;
I was still young enough to be
Distracted by the thought of kissing,
And you were so,
So distracting.

We found out on a Wednesday,
Two days too late.

We walked barefoot through the dunes after sunset
And picked every yellow flower we could find.
(There were only yellow flowers.)

We put them out to sea,
One for each part of you we had loved.
One for your father who had loved you.
And one for each of the things you had loved,
Those lucky things,
Your best friend, your favorite bra.
A dozen scrubland daisies in the low tide.

The color stained our hands
And I cried every time I saw it-
On my palms, on the shoulders of the highway.
As if you had put every yellow thing on earth
And I would never be allowed
To forget it, the same way
I would never be allowed
To forget you.