From this terrestrial plateau,
Two planets of life celestial,
reach to flirt in that spatial,
One degree of separation;
June 30th and the minutes,
That brought Venus, ever bright,
Close to Jupiter the Rake,
almost kissing, barely touching,
in my version of events.

I watched the morning come,
its satin sheet of light lifting
off of the curve of the world.

Venus shone something crooked,
like the eye of a magpie staring
down at my blond head. I took

one last sip of whiskey, stood
and in the sauntering, in wobbling
home to my own bed, Venus

watched me turn my back,
like a stone rolled in front of a tomb.
I finally stopped chasing love.

I decided I’d rather spend
each night thereafter comfortable
in the bed of my life, no longer able

to sleep while sick of the resurrection
I had at one time simply called six a.m.

A girl appeared to him one day, as beautiful and virtuous as Venus herself. As a saint he was inquired to leave her be, one could even say that an appearance such as this could be named a trial of faith, an incredibly cruel trial. And oh how unquestionably worthy of his title he was, but not nearly worth as much as a caress of her warm hand. He almost immediately let out a cry as he cursed his god. He left his eternal oath to enter the beauty and darkness of the unknown. What a wonderfully dark abyss it was.

My heart breaks as my Venus pulls away
Was the love you professed to me a lie?
Did it hold any meaning?
I feel abandoned
Betrayed and deceived
My heart still beats your name

And soon you will leave
A season separated
How am I to prove to you my love
When I cannot reach you?

I beg you
Think quickly
Know that I suffer in your absence
I pray with my hands to the Lord
That you remember our love
That the fire be rekindled

You are my love.
My single desire.
I cannot live without you.
I dare not even try.

We have ventured from the start
and lost sight and broken apart, but
there is a way to live without
hearing heartbeats as ticking clocks
shouting of times past;
we sat side by side through every class
and we’re not done learning. Our
gravestones are jettisoned from the shuttle,
floating there goes gravity but
even shadowed from the sun by so much,
we clutch at moons to make our own light
on our own planet. We
could keep going now,
could stop each other from falling
and keep marking our heights
against the wall even though
they stopped changing long ago
because we didn’t
and instead of accumulating
the weight of years and days
we could find a way to keep getting lighter
the farther we get from the beginning
we are finite
but there went gravity
cause of death: life

I’ve learned that in the morning
light is liquid, flowing golden,
and I’ve learned that in the ocean
every motion turns to fluid,
and fish glide, learn how birds fly,
and their eyes are always open.

I’ve learned that if you stand
in the belfry when the bells ring
you can hear them in your heart
like when she calls you and the phone sings.
And I’ve learned that when you’re hoping,
light is lighter, clearer, brighter
and I’ve heard that you can see it
with eyes open

We are done trying to piece
our hearts back together
with glass and glue each time
they shatter
because there is only so much
blood one can lose
and we are strong enough each
to reach for ourselves again and we
are strong enough to be friends
and to look at the sky and to know
that there is no race to fill up
all that space