I.
A little pakalolo for you and me to light up,
can you hear the tom-tom of the beat,
dissolving into a smooth sax…
That night in the discotheque, my god,
you were so handsome under neon lights,
swaggering with your schoolboy smile.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off of
the green-golden-halo around your iris,
inviting me in to adore you.
In the space of bodies, I grasped for the untouchable,
so greedy for this tenderness stretching out
in the dark heat like a fat cat in the sun.
You left east. I smell you on my skin, I smell
freshly mowed grass, wash drying in the wind,
the pure air of the high mountains.
I never really touched you after all.


II.
When you spoke, I only heard your voice, the melody,
its joyous tremolo, its tired flatness,
the deep bass arising from the middle of a storm.
We never called each other by our names. We didn’t need to.

I walk to the open window, below,
the busiest street in the city, silent at 2 am.
The air is buzzing with uncertainty. Just a minute ago,
your tiny room was drowning in light so orange.
I thought that sunset would last forever.
Forever? I’ve wanted you more than anything,
more than sanity, more than life itself.
For ever ever?
The sky melted into ink. It meant goodbye.


III.
It’s your song
that moves within me what can be voiced only in clichés,
as if I couldn’t talk about the deep end of love
without comparing it to a gushing river,
turning gentle into rough then gentle again.

Pisces Moon –
next lifetime maybe,
you'll be free and I'll be brave
and we won't know each as we do.
If it's real, does it matter, what kind of love we're given?