i died just to haunt you
to breathe my smoke in your ear
and see if you remember me.
to follow where you walk
and hope to stay with you
this time,
even if the sensation’s one-sided:
can you love what you can’t touch, can’t hear -
[i know you can’t hear me,
but sorry if i wound you
with obscenities and broken hopes,
speaking in a foreign tongue of bitterness
and desire,
of the fickle fates
and fickler hearts of men] -
change partners as the fiddler changes tunes
moving with someone new,
who speaks your language
and doesn’t smoke like a dying fire.
can they dance like i did?
skirts swirling up time like water in a stagnant pond,
your winds fueling ripples -
how i cherished those lungs.

now i’ll blow my smoke signals in your ears
so maybe they’ll reach you
this time.
you ran to the plains while i tended the fires,
chasing something better -
but wild horses are only beautiful from afar.
harness them and they’ll crush you with their
meekness:
reins and saddles when you sought sweat
and wild rolling eyes,
eyes that never shut,
too filled with life to mimic death
even if just
for a moment,
wide while yours shut to block out the moon:

sometimes when you close your eyes
all you see is the sun.
[burning like a maniac,
like a man who met the devil
while drowning.]
sometimes when i close my eyes
all i see is red
red like rusted-over watches, red like
bottom-of-the-barrel
and anger,
and red like the wretched slough of time,
shedding seconds like scales.

[sometimes when i close my eyes
i imagine yours closing
in synch,
like a connection between us,
no matter how fragile.]

sometimes when you close your eyes
you find it hard to open them again.

don’t remind me that you don’t want me,
just give me one
moment
to memorize your shape -
hope you don’t mind my recreating you
from the scraps i can capture
in the meager light drifting from the sky.
smoke will choke it out soon enough
and you will be alone
with your broken wild things
and snuffed-out embers,

waiting for the tune to change again.