ive seen you
throw back your head
and wail silently

i heard you
trace triangles
up your arm

and ive seen you
sleep
motionless,
and growling

and ive seen you
motionless

i will never
again,
i will never again

it’s a soft touch
on your lips
and rolls gently
down your
tongue

and your mildew breath sits
in a soft glow
in the pockets
of your cheeks

o, this morning
has been cold

and im shaking
but filled softly with life

trudging slow past milder new york beachgoers,
you stooped in the sand to pick up a shell,
and i crouched with you.

you told me as a little girl you would fill buckets
with shells, and the next day they would “smell
halfway to kentucky”

you picked out a tiny shell for me,
and i tucked it away in my denim pocket

and today, i dont smell halfway to kentucky
but my nose is burnt pink from looking up
and smiling southward

the trap, i think,
is letting your body trick you
into believing that there
could possibly be
anything more interesting going on

the trap
is to let an artist tell you
that any poem can improve on silence

or that there is anywhere else in the world
but the soft pink where her lip
melts into her chin

we waste life chasing infinity
but god, its this!
not these
its this

tallness of order
and tall chaotic
we hate because we have loved
and we love
like we have no other choice

you are outside
breathing off the edge of a cliff
and i
am bouncing a balloon on my pinkies

and i will never let it
touch the ground

no
this is how i will exert
my control

because:
we all want to fall

but i
   will
       never
           let it.

i am thinking about your *******
and all your tiny, spiral nerve endings
oh, i want to make you dizzy
i want to make you twirl and scream and sigh

but instead i will hold your face in my palm
pressing my nose to yours,
head bobbing stagnant against you

and i will do nothing

a leaf sitting on a cushion of air
and o, i am falling again

you loved him as a space traveller
and i saw you as a satellite

and where i looked and saw lines
you saw triangles and squares and galaxies.

i am filled with it

and if there is life in space, i hope somewhere
there is a planet more comfortable than this

the lights have been out
your skin is invisible under your pajamas
and mine in my pale coat
as i lay my cumbersome mass along your body

and you float out of it.

i ruin sanctity,
incorporeality

i am so afraid of it