Summer morning.
Recrossing the borderline from the afterlife,
the dreamer is expelled from sleep, the dream lost.
I am a dream’s shadow,
heavy with transition, jagged from sleep.
Light gathers me from every room I have ever slept in
onto the shrinking island of the bed.

Someone cues the poetry. Unquiet lines.
The past was worse than you thought,
voices say.  Your life is a weighted skin.
Stop swimming against the tide of loss.
Sink.

Yet gloom is porous.
From the sky’s cracked mosaic,
Daybreak seeps in.
The light reassembles familiar objects,
which replace mere longing in ordinary darkness.

The things of the world resist but return
to radiance, resume the work of existing.
We are all day laborers.
It's my shift. Summon the coffee.
The world yawns before me.
And I am, therefore (I think).

time has a scent
that's quite different
from bitter lemon zest
to cool peppermint

like that of sidewalk chalk
heavy rains keep washing off
time comes in many colors
beyond that on the box

sampling a taste
pouring out in waves
time is a surgeon
set to operate

is a makeshift shelf
where life's books are held
to one day be read
by somebody else

time is all of these
among many other things
but most of all
time is the cruelest of thieves

His left eye
Always gravitates
Toward the constellations

Even though
That prom night
Falling star

First breathed life
Into the weird concrete carport
Down by the water treatment plant.

His right eye
Always gravitates
Toward the earth

Even though
The Great Water Fountain
Out west

First taught him
How to truly
See the sky.

She is not a paper doll pressed between
Sheets of cellophane in my notebook for
The world to undress with their eyes.

She elbows me out of dreams featuring
Peter Pan with his Lost Boys, and leaves
A bruise the shape of Illinois on my ribs.

She sews on the Metro without a thimble and ******
Her fingers stitching buttons onto her black pea coat—
White thread bleeds red in her hand.

When she rides the North Line in the winter,
She sails past her stop for the thrill of surveying
New parts of the city bundled in winter clothes.

She collects deserted train tickets with expired
Destinations, and passes the minutes between
Stops speaking with strangers.

Most of them grumble that the Cubs won’t win
The series until they let a goat into Wrigley.

I would trade her every canceled ticket stub
In my wallet to buy her hot chocolate at the
Next random stop she chooses.

But she and I will always be passengers on
Opposite trains traveling to different cities.

Truth is you
weren't blameless
I saw your eyes
flash red that night
the fire in your palms
wouldn't burn out.

Together we were
a suicide pact,
there was something
about the drug in
each others eyes
that made us want
to overdose.

We itched like
razor blades
on each others skin,
our tongues a noose,
heartbeats fast,
furious.

My hands bled love
my knuckles
bruised like skies
I puked up every word
until I could finally
say goodbye.

She wears my military
Issue jacket into the cold.

We stalk the empty platform.
Our breath trails behind us,
Like the smoke of a locomotive.

She wants to travel in shadows
Beneath a veil of frost.

I want to give her the diamond
My former fiancé left me.

But I would feel like a conductor
Returning a ticket stub, proclaiming
I am a passenger without my own momentum.

We trudge through the snow
And board the late train to Harrisburg.
I incinerate the love left in my heart.

One day I will wake up and
She will tell me it’s spring.

Fixing his eyes on
The purple horizon,
He waits for his ship to come in;
Gazing across
Empty seas at a loss,
Anxiously scratching his chin.

The spray of the waves
Against his worn face
Reminds him that hope has grown thin,
As clouds drifting by
Can hear a soul sigh,
“Will my ship ever come in?”

But just then the winds
Off the starboard begin
To fill flapping sails overhead,
As gazing straight down
At boards, and not ground,
He sees that a deck his feet tread.

“All of this time,
For my ship I have pined,
And searched near and far for a sign;
But such was in vain,
For now it is plain
That I’ve stood at its helm the whole time.”

Thanks for breaking me out, pal
Thanks for breaking me in
Got no reason to pout, now
With the stars on my skin
‘Cause the moon through the windshield
Never tasted so good
And the moon whispers louder
Than the sun ever could

Let’s forget the stale glories
We dreamed up in the day
You’re the king of the night, now
And I’m the queen of LA
(Yeah) I’m a modern day Bonnie
And you’re a latter day Clyde
Never mind my kid brother
He’s just along for the ride

Fire up the Comanche
And gather up the debris
Strewn across the cracked vinyl
Holding down the front seat
Let’s shoot south for El Paso
Then whip hard to the East
We’ll make Denver by morning
Or Grand Junction, at least

Tell a lie to my left ear
And I’ll lie to your right
In the bed of the pickup
On the floor of the night
Here’s your pistol and pick-ax
Where’s my chisel and stone?
We’re the smoking sage bandits
Throwing fate a fat bone