Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

Words
help us define
the way sea turns into sky
the way left becomes right
the way day rises from night.

Words
pin us down to this earth.
Otherwise we would have left.
I would have followed your footsteps
walking toward infinity.

You and I,
we live in words
we dance through words
we make love with words
we are words.

Words
the invention of the lonely
the ultimate intimacy
the bridge between you and me
the child between you and me.

Together,
we create words
we refine words
we play with words
we become words.

And so Our Love
is eternal
behind these words.

I am not born as yet,
five minutes before my birth.  
I can still go back
into my unbirth.
Now it’s ten minutes before,  
now, it’s one hour before birth.  
I go back,
I run
into my minus life.

I walk through my unbirth as in a tunnel  
with bizarre perspectives.
Ten years before,
a hundred and fifty years before,
I walk, my steps thump,
a fantastic journey through epochs  
in which there was no me.

How long is my minus life,
nonexistence so much resembles immortality.

Here is Romanticism, where I could have been a spinster,  
Here is the Renaissance, where I would have been
an ugly and unloved wife of an evil husband,
The Middle Ages, where I would have carried water in a tavern.

I walk still further,  
what an echo,  
my steps thump
through my minus life,  
through the reverse of life.  
I reach Adam and Eve,
nothing is seen anymore, it’s dark.
Now my nonexistence dies already
with the trite death of mathematical fiction.
As trite as the death of my existence would have been  
had I been really born.

one drink illuminated by candlelight
you sit across from me
and talk and talk
but your voice is in a low whisper
you don't want anyone
to overhear your pitiful excuses
you scold me
then feel bad
the red rose you gave me
when we first sat down
now sits awkwardly
on the small table

two drinks illuminated by candlelight
you beg me to say something
my mouth is closed
only open to the liquor
"you're acting ridiculous"
I don't respond
I ask the waiter
for another

three drinks illuminated by candlelight
I begin to envy the rose
it looks beautiful
there is no mirror
but I am ugly
I take the rose
and peel the green coat off
then the petals
until it's ugly
as ugly as I feel

four drinks illuminated by candlelight
you stand up
put on your jacket
"where are you going"
you don't answer
I watch you walk away
you don't turn around
you don't say goodbye

five drinks illuminated by candlelight
the glass is half full
the glass is half empty
the drink is gone
down into the pit
of my stomach
the seat
across from me
is empty
i toast the invisible man
he smiles

six drinks illuminated by candlelight
i don't know
why i'm sad
i just know
i feel sad
i sit
i say nothing
the glasses are scattered
on the table
my mind is muddled
my brain
is in pieces
i stand
i sit
i stand
i leave