The bows out stretched, rising
   , falling
and the clarinet is singing her song
so low-
where the violins
avoid in veiled
soprano
and the basses
in bulk
like to go-

When I close my eyes,
I'm on a path
   and I'm walking
    and Tchaikovsky's notes sound like
      words-
  the timpani sounds like the
beating wings,
the tilted flight,
  the colony of bats
    in aviation slur

when fate keeps on
      knocking
and it's finally
    autumn first-
I am in the
mezzanine,
   and my response to
your andante's
unrehearsed

And you are there,
under composer
charm,
your aura blazing
ochre
I've found that
   everywhere
that I'm
  with you,
             is an
Orchestra's October.

After this
    long
    summer where
the street lights stay
orange after
                nightfall

I'm going to keep telling
myself
if the sun looks like it
   never sets,
then
   the fall is never coming

Watching you fall
so hard
  when you leapt so high
    you were so
  inspired by the
hope for wings-

they say that you can build your
wings on the
way down,
but that's not always true
you gave it everything you had-
sacrificed, and gave it all
and because you believed
the dream
of building wings,
my heart had to break
      your
  fall.

These days,
when I'm feeling alone
   or finally excited, again
or have a thought to
  hear your
               voice,

I get the urge to pick up the phone
       and call you
for a
second, only a
passing
          moment,
as quick as the light of a match before
      I remember
you died, last
winter and I slept in the
hospital
for weeks

Instinct hasn't caught up to
   reality

     yet

You left your love in
  Papago Park
   leaning against
   red rocks that feel like
fevers now
give me a palm leaf to shade my
eyes.

I can't even sleep when the sky is so red
in September
  no leaves on
the ground,
either

It's all dirt here.

You've left your love in
Papago Park and it may as well be
any side of Mars
with how far we have to
go and
how impossible
this
seems.

It's 1778 miles

    from where I am, here
and you are somewhere
else

I don't know why
the further away
  you fly
  the more afraid
          I am:

there is no cage to hold you!
or tool big enough to clip your
   wandering wings

It's 1778 miles from
  where we've packed away mud
     and sticks and feathers that were going to protect us from
  
    the storms- you told me.

and still you've found your
self
a continent
away
and here,
  the temperature
    is drop
               p
                 i
                  n
                    g
                       fast

It's been days out
in the desert
in the no-end
summer
when I wish
now was
then
and then was
always
keeping up with
later

My brush is full of
fall-in-love hues.
cinnamons and cardamom,
   rich garnets buried inside rocks
     that have yet-to-be cracked
   open.

my hand is full of
tiny thoughts,
  the color leather & lapis
lazuli,
where the south is leaning up her chin
to give the north a kiss.

I'm going to
present you with the colors
like a row of
exotic spices-
expensive, condensed, the palate,
this palette,
of every world I can see you
in.

I don't want to search
for the dark side of the moon.
Someday, I'll just know.

It's always a whistle to
catch my
attention.

A man, a gym coach, a steaming hot
tea kettle.

It's always a sharp note of bird
song- though,
au contraire,
when a bird actually whistles.
When she actually sings,
I seem to be
the only one who
stops to listen
though I know she's not looking
for
attention.

I watched the bouquet that you bought me
bloom inside my house.
I watched the swollen buds, not
quite green and not quite pink,
fluttering with life inside their
walls, slowly pushing to
release them from their
chambers to the great unknown of
my living room: this is about you,
you know.

I watched the leaves that you brought me
slowly make a change
quietly and faithfully
diligently, canopies
beneath flowers,
(leaves are so
  overlooked)

and I also watched the vase that you got me
I watched the ups and the downs of
the ripples of a grey white creamy glass
bumpy and textured and not afraid to compete
with carnations, to watch them die, to hold fresh cuts
again, nurses of the garden holding tired, flower
    bones

but beneath the buds on the new frontier
the leaves who work in shadows,
          and the vase that's seen more death than you or I, alone-
                            is your hand
I watch your hand that you present me,
lingered, hanging in the air
like a pear about to fall
the hand that chooses,
picks,
holds flowers,
  and doesn't forget that leaves
and stems and
bark
also need loving-
your hand that holds a vase and then
holds all the garden in
    me.

It was 112 today
and you were standing
on the clean, new floors-
a honey brown like from way back
home (I'm not sure if I'll
get used to this place. It's hot here and I miss
the woods)
you held an ice tray in your
hand,
and you told me you had
woke the night before,
for a moment,
from a dream where it were if you'd never
    met me
so in the desert night, the fan blowing on my face, you grabbed my shoulder
as I was dead in sleep-

to make sure that I was
there
   then you asked me,

your bare feet on the
new, cold floor
  if I wanted a Mai Tai
  
you opened the orange
***

All the poets
in my life are
not writers
at all

They say the sound
of bird song
calms the
body,
rests the
  pulse.

So fly into my
canopy
beneath
a thousand
trees,
darling,
you're like a birdsong
        to me.

You taste like caramel
and I don't even
have to
open
my
    
   mouth

A cold hand that pulls
back fast and lifts
high
or grabs your little
porcelain-doll wrist
   maybe to
break it
   a hand with snakey fingers
who
will crawl under sheets
of little flowers
  and hide in fields
    it should not
   It's always quiet like
serpents
and it's always what
love is not.

We drove out to
Dorena Lake
out past those
little towns,
buried in maps,
"It's not like it's New York
  City, baby."
your sweaty
fingers clamping
a burning cigarette
I can't even look at you.
It's not like New York
City as we
drive past cow
after cow after
barn and
those bails of
hay covered
in white
plastic.

Sometimes I think I am
halfway done
a little raw
inside the heart of
my
self

I stand in galleries
in large, track-lit halls
  and look at the art-
   in which
I do not relate
and I can feel my cramped
foot inside
my little shoes
that I bought
because they're
red and I want
to stand out too

I think I'm half way
done-
embarrassed and
  a little pink,
but still hot from
your flame.

A time has come
for
   love me,
tender

as I'm walking
down the
stairs
and the
edge of my heel
touches the
pavement
in a whisper.

I try not to
talk too
loud,
because I'm scared
I won't remember
all I've
said

a time has come for
love me,
  tender
and
  to
talk more.

It's finally working like
scarlet
like patterns of roses on
rocks.
Like fossils embedded like
stickers
and lizards our own little
            voyeurs

It's finally working like
summer.
like designs of sunsets with
garnet tipped rays-

Like my sandals are
kicked off and
you're in the
garden
and our chipped
china
black
coffee
for
days

I was watching the
Nutcracker,
stage drinking blue
The violins
pizzicato,
pizzicato
the wood sprung floor
breathing with the knock
of ballet shoes

I was watching the
Nutcracker,
sitting in the
mezzanine,
Mezzanine
the red kiss of
cherry wood and
green,
I live in
the mezzanine

I was watching the
Nutcracker,
peering into the
pit,
a small gap in the
stage floor where
I could see your
wrist,
holding your bow,
swaying your
bow,
pushing back and forth making my
carpal tunnel
ache, oh your
bow

I was watching the
Nutcracker
and you were playing
the score
Tchaikovsky
Tchaikovsky
beneath the
stage floor

Count down from 11,
and I'm leaving the
region

I'm heading East
like I'm searching for
freedom

away from the forests
away from the rain
away from the constant
coverage of grey

Count down from 11,
and I'm going with
you

I'm heading East
I'm hoping for something
new

Nearer to deserts
& nearer to heaven
from this moment on it's
countdown from eleven.

I'm washing my hands
beneath the normal-kitchen-
view,
and a bird is sitting on a
wire, I think watch-
ing me too

and I'm slowly scrubbing dishes,
china-chipped from
soft soirées
& eating with my
house coat on,
the winter chill ablaze

I'm thinking of an
empty pan,
to be used then begin again,
I'm lighting the stove and
filling my
*** with
Orange and Cinnamon

I bought a book of
empty sheets
to find
something to
do

and as I filled the creamy
leaves I only thought of
you

I set the kettle, warmed my
hands,
I chose my favorite tea

I turned onto the
last back page and scribbled
"you and me."

When we get to
  talking
and you ask me how
I think I died
in my past life:

I tell you,
  I've never died and I'm
going
  to live


                forever.

Dreamy veils
  or orange
in which i
spot the sun-waves
through-
a spider web i
sometimes see
when i slant
my head

I'm aware that
silence is golden
  and there's nothing
   quieter than the sun
from
     where I stand

Like a flower I will
  tilt my neck
    to touch the sky
     and blindly
  shadow
light.

How tree trunks hold
a sturdy limb who's
reaching towards the
light is how
I am always
holding
you
and love to
bear the
weight.

I'm back in the valley
where the screens have fallen out the windows
now and
the cicadas
sing like a choir
and you're their God

I've resigned to loving
you,
             endlessly

For every
  winter
and every joy
every summer's
  hideaway
beneath a canopy
of palm

I'll lean my head
back,
against a tree,
my swan neck branched out in
   poetry

for the every fire
the every love
and the every misery,
there's a canopy of
  hope to hold
and the rest to set you
free

With so many
   stars
    in the sky to
pluck,
I'd surely
leave
outer-space
blue

So
I'll pick a
blooming flower,
instead,
&
name it
after
   you

People've always
called me a
bird,
but I don't sing
for song's sake
or inspire

I go south
for the
summer, predictably
human
   and instinctively
drawn to
fire

I've never been so in
love
or so angry
that I want to burn my
tongue
to remember
coffee with
you.

When I was
a kid,
I'd lie out on
the broken
deck,
never afraid
I might fall
in
with
the
rotting
boards,
but scared
instead the
Big
Dipper had
moved from where
she lied the
summer
  before.

I paint so
little wooden
fences
and
fleeting cups of
coffee
between
lovers last
forever

When I look down
from a plane
and see the
foamy white
of day-clouds, &
imagine if
the birds can
hear me here,
I imagine this
thing
and another-
where you're
beneath these
patterns
and where I'm above
the sky
is there a sort
of way like a
cloud,
that I have no
perceived
beginning or an
ending?

A bee
floats over a
blossom
and his wings
are one
with vision

living seems
so easy
when the hardest
parts are
hidden.

You probably don't
want
to
see
me
on the
way up

but I have to say I'm
sorry
for
holding your ankle
for so long.