From here, there's a whole sky spread like
blueberries and jam, like
fields of stars and I'm sprinting
across them, east, each a little posy
on the palms of my feet.
or some angel, thighs apart, grape lips,
her shoulders tossed,
wan and against a pool of clouds
babbling nonsense like a child, or
an oil painting of the sun
over Rio, or over Borneo or Milan.
She's lifting my face
eyes not even meeting mine because
they're so far off and lost
soft and lazy
about them the reflection of
turquoise is earth brown.

On the street in Tokyo one summer
a woman seized my shoulders,
her coarse hair as coal as night and hugging her face
so that when she opened her mouth
the darkness and roundness of it all
was as if a black hole were to engulf me entirely.
Good nature and sake
dried in spittle on her lip,
she cupped my *******
and fed me the Universe
thick from her own swollen *****.

I want to be the stones to your riverbed,
pipeclayed satellites,
so that you move forever about my body
and I sturdy along the soft banks of your heart.

Most nights, I'm on tip toes, hands out
plucking away stars and planets and the moon
rounding up whole galaxies in my palms
and throwing the universe at you in armfuls,
blushing,
because I want to give you everything I possibly could give another
until you are full and smiling.
If only to hear you laugh the way you do.
If only to feel your voice, low and honeyed
in "sweetheart"s or "baby"s or "Shayla"s.

All dimples and curls and pigeon toes when sitting,
purple; and gold dangles
light-skinned girl, dark-skinned girl
depending on the translation
hips swivel to the left, ******* that follow
in commanding black bras
and matching lacy *******.
Rolling backwards into handstands for most *******,
else on the loveseat
whipping love back and forth between the swell
beneath the shorts
and beneath the outer layers,
the lip gloss smiles and masquerades
beneath the veins and bone and guts:
there's a naked, quivering heater
switched on all year long
its dainty wiring peeking out,
the head of the cord puckered.

You confess your love like dropping a stone into the ocean.
She swallows it whole and greedy
rolls it about her mouth,
the open waves frill and spray in shudders
bashful, because she needs to taste all she can before it dips
below the surface.
and it dives,
fish or coral on its straight path? it doesn't give a ****
like you
like me, a barking a seagull over our rowboat
in after that stone
desperate after that stone
its slipping between my fingers,
through my hair
always just beyond, just beyond

over my shoulder the moon is a blurred marble
against the dull night of sea

and the farther I chase you,
the further I am from you ,
the quicker I remember I cannot swim.

I'm at the end of the trail, a caboose burning midnight like a poet,
like a nobody
I'm behind Blondie and Blue Eyes and Whiteskinnygirl number one two three
so that I round each corner dead last spinning my charred wheels tough
aching to understand why every other car
will always be golden to you,
to why I'm unimportant
yet you refuse to unhinge these wrists.
From the mountains, from the sea,
from the gravel beneath our tracks, honey,
I can hear you,
groaning my name up my knees,
"Shayla,shayla,shayla,"
a Super C the way you pump steam earthward
as if to make love to the rail I'm making love to for you.