During our love, houses were completed
spiritual homes where you
rebuilt my foundations

idealistic comforts that
somehow I had forgotten
among the gardens, listing
the essential spiritual pleasure
that had no country to root for

but accepted all beings
During our love, we felt
a peace where we were completed

finally, irrevocably, whole
as if lost forever previously
our touch was that mutual
sensation of shared mysticism
the chime of fortitude

and unity so foreign to our
previous human experience
you and I were still like

strange visions to behold
universal love, at just
the right temperature.

i

Love is like a foreign language
once you hear it, you want to hear it more
speak it without it sounding alien
though she will behave here

as in a schoolbook for a foreign language
where we are all beginners
all sometimes say ***** words

ii

Without meaning to, she reaps
She sleeps, she washes, she softens
to its touch because it was made for her
like attachment, and for him like pleasure

love has no vowels, no translations, no silence
only a universal physicality and spirituality
that makes you have no defenses, you

iii

Trying not to love doesn’t bring you anywhere
it’s creative to let her use you
she is the last refugee and the first politics
she comes back in the evening when

your world is torn upside down with bills
it’s love that cooks for you darling
she whispers to you, “I’m taking you home”.

I’m the captured poet of dream
a Ferris wheel author of
haunted Sioux transcendence-miracles

an alchemist of language
maybe the last poet of epiphanies
that dance like a silent water-tanka
the fire-rain-truth shouts inside of me

like a poet that navigates the overmind
a benevolent alien collective-mind
an indecipherable dialogue of

darling insomnia divinity and
fantasy-starved and sun-quilted
ambrosia, my lungs filled
with the promise of the cosmos

come to life in majestic verse
behind blindfolds of invisible offerings
resigned to the hypothetical
responsibility of mediumship.

I don’t know the etiquette
of how eyes meet or for the first time
if they sparkle especially or

if I wore glasses the first time we met
I know I saw you with my intrinsic
looking as if I could pierce
your inner beauty, nor am I biased

I don’t know the business of eyes
beauty has been so over-rated
for so long, thanks to an evolution

but I know the last time
I look inside my heart, you’ll be there
with Asian eyes as deep as
India, China, Japan, Korea

so distinct like laughter of another culture
i don’t know the etiquette of eyes
but mine are drunk brown

not twin-cold blue or milk of salt
but chesnut-star, desire with the tip
of reaching across the universe.

i

My ugly love, when you are so beautiful
to me it’s not enough for my mouth
whose kisses routinely bathe you

in an inventory of whispers, love-cries
with tenderness for however long
nature allows, you allow, fate allows
flower by flower, I would choose you
again and again, my loving angel

ii

Your body’s fragrance is my
shadow’s energy, your humid flesh
the channel of my dreams

if also for our child, who forgot to incarnate?
my truthful love, so sincere and honest
with armpits like the smell of wheat
and ******* as impetuous as a stormy sea
and eyes like wildfire, cutting me

iii

Into sweet obedience, I could not imagine
that I could have built a house of
sweetness without your splendor

and how you love cherries, your cheeks
an Asian wispy elven secret of youth
my soul-engaging love, I have to remind myself
we are getting older together in
beloved months, we sometimes forget the details

iv

Of why nothing mattered or had a name
except each other, we were made for this
an alchemy of spirits, while our shared beauty

allowed us to endure poverty
with gifts as plentiful as sparking
moments of gratitude that went on forever
like lessons learned from wise calming friends
and lovers that felt like they were

v

Gifts from the gods, plump-wide-eyed
spiritual dreams of some strange mineral belonging
we walk naked through the golden church

of our earthy love, as if we learned to be
one body, one shared soul wearing
clothes of separate bodies, laughing minds.

I don't have a gag reflex anymore
Because I've shoved my fist down my throat
Far too many times
Just trying to pull out the words I cannot conjure
They all taste acerbic
And sound as bitter and damaging as they taste