():
you've taken up too many characters,
a placeholder, 0, is all i attribute to you.
(I):
i lack recall enough
to call back when
we first reacted--
science fair, maybe,
mâche volcanoes
from wet bits--
(too little base,
a surplus of vinegar)
the only magma
with measurable
pH
(II):
made cattle to caffeine,
the pastures we frequented
have gone out of business
by now
(III):
spoke and wrote
with silly string,
messy, childish,
hard to clean up--
impossible to pick
every adhesive trace
from tweed coat fibers--
i draped it around you
and left quietly without
apologizing
(IV):
number four, morphine drip,
corruption (with a caramel center),
you took me to a courtyard where
you had scrawled your number
with a gold safety pin stuck
in the grain--
didn't matter as long as they
brought you plain grain beverages--
i can't say how long i must have
been unconscious for you to
have been able to fully affix
trusses, crossbars and artificial joints
between prostheses--
you made a marionette of me
in a grubby alley operating room,
with an empty bottle
across the occipital for anesthesia,
and a patchwork of phone numbers
staring down from the scratched
portrait in the wood walls
of office buildings surrounding--
keep your cloths on a little longer
keep yourself closed from now on
keep yourself close from now on
[V]:
think of whichever oath you hold
gravely, and think of me, promising
i felt just as illusory as you before--
saved a letter from you i read sometimes
to remind myself how first real loves
can be, so as not to lose faith to cynicism,
and cynicism/stomach lining to coffee grounds.
thank you
[VI]:
i met you only once,
it was enough.
i didn't make out your
last name as you introduced
yourself between zipping up
your fly and cinching your belt,
and even while you walked
inside, between dry heaves,
i could think only of
your Texan-tinsel-town namesake--
good luck streaming the past like
mother's ashes from the back of
your lake boat so many miles from home,
it's all anyone could ask
(VII):
i took that polaroid of you;
you had your hand over
a candle flame and the
shadows dancing between
your fingers illuminated
the spare patches of snow
remaining on the playground.
there was no mistaking
the draining of my swimming
pool of ego as i witnessed
you staring out from each
ice crystal reflection in awe:
your smile tumbled down
the slide and spilled into laughter
while
your voice lilted up the rock wall
and sang in triumph at the top --
i miss you, ganges girl
[VIII]/[IX]:
first time i knew,
second time i suspected,
finally broke me down,
now we laugh about it,
or preferably, don't bring
it up anymore
[X]:
i might still be in love with you
first and foremost, if that's how
things worked, but virginity
isn't a collateral asset, you did
me no favors,
but share in sunshine shoves
and pushes-- a beer down,
3g 'til the bottom of the bag,
alice and wonderland--
i can't watch that movie
without thinking of long hair,
self-destruction, self-deceit,
and naïveté--
you made me grow up with you,
and while you've been in college
i've been rotting.
[XI]:
i've whiled away a year of slacking words
in favor of those spouting from you torrentially.
a placeholder, for people i've written too much about already:
11.
[XII]:
unnerved me in the best of ways,
but you were always ****** up
and emptied of scruples--
had me once at your favorite album,
fooled me twice when you came back,
but you won't get another chance to
touch me
[XIII]:
snow-flakey,
corn comfort,
corn snake.
solid, supple,
untrustworthy.
[moscow]:
you spent a year abroad
so i had only one thing to call you,
and even though I brought my black
camo S&W; pocketknife,
when you told me ******
was cheaper than marijuana
in the motherland,
i knew i shouldn't
have soothed myself
into confident
complacency,
and instead
leapt from
the subaru
piled high,
tobacco-strewn,
littered by cremations
of victims before me.
[XV]:
i yawn and jaws part,
droop down lids,
the realist rendering
of a singularity in film
can't even keep me awake--
but when we get home,
and crawl into the satin
cascade of your mother's
sheets, god, i can't
even think of sleeping.
the moon was also full--
it wanes for awhile now