i thought i'd never step outside
lightly, without haste again.
how is it possible to stand in your air
without wool, new england?
it's the vitamin d sliding off
my skin into another *****, i
try to tell myself.

today someone i admire said that
i am dharma.
and i thought, he must be
confused, because i cannot
sleep until the birds converse, i cannot
read until someone holds me
at gunpoint, i cannot
do laundry until i am drip
drying in -4 degrees at wide eyed
3am. how does one who teaches me
claim i have done the teaching?

also, i thought i'd never watch the celtic
wolf pup with any woman
calmly, that my exotic fires will always
blaze your landscape when you
inspire my first love to lay eyes on
another, new england. i know you
favor the irish girls, i thought
i'd never lose that finger. but last
night when he kissed his
new blonde girlfriend in my
dream i didn't feel like fire,
nor ice, nor the typical acid bath
i expected to turn into.

it was more like the very
last snowflake gently swayed
her hips down to the peak of
mount olympus. the final atom to
complete a solution suddenly switched
to soft frothy white. i stared
at them a moment, puzzled while
the piece clicked in, your frigid
breeze irrelevant, without consequence
and the way laid out ahead of
me, cavorting down the mountain.