But does a lover ignore his beloved?
Do I think you get used to it?
Like a flute playing in the distance.
Do I think you blind or deaf
to my silence
to the bustling dreary me?
Do I think you are immune
to my flight?
Do I hope you are dough waiting to be kneaded
assume you are accustomed to being unneeded
or do I wear
a dark cloak glad you don’t see me there?

How often do I blithely
utter, I love you
while wrapped secure
in the loaf of self?

Dear Z----,

Once, maybe, I was an Orpheus -

one of millions (there are still millions),
calling someone back from an underworld -

once, maybe, I had candles for fingers,
stars leaking from my teeth,
eyes that broke barred doors in twain.

But not now. You were so shy
at the bar's short shoal
giving me rain-in-Montreal smiles,
hinting at a history of disappointment.

Sometimes, it all changes in a single night -
but the magic failed us both.
I will always wonder.

So I am sorry: my hands, my eyes...
my starry mouth a wide sorry-slash.

I have to go. -E

what’s the opposite of a joke. what’s the cure for loneliness. i turn myself inside out for god. i eat the spiders, the seeds, the palmful of *****. my tongue has teeth and my teeth have mouths. i cry like i practice crying. god calls me orange. a most saturated orange. i give up my dreams. i will never be whole

wind shuffles
through the long grass

seeded heads
drowsy
in the percolating afternoon

broiled air
heavy and lethargic
laboriously ascends
its unseen ladder
into the barren sky

Arcady sings
from a place
of unimaginable height

the song
is a whisper
at the precipice

I am the wing
that awaits your breath
to take flight