He couldn't stay for tea
He was afraid he might feel something
Upstairs instead of in his
*****
If he had been thirsty
I would have shown him a metaphor
For dehydrated relationships
Gallium spoons dissolving in any hot liquid
Solubility tends to complicate things
We lose pieces of ourselves
At body temperature
Boil down impurities
A reduction of our leftover parts
Our leftover lust

Another year bolder,
Another year brighter,
Another year older but ever a fighter.

Another year smarter,
Another year greater,
Another year better than every hater.

Another year lifted,
Another year treasured,
Another year gifted by love still unmeasured.

I’ve been thinking about hands
a lot lately and how fingerprints are like
permanent, foreshadowing tree rings
etched onto our beings; I wonder if
the number of rings on my palms have any
correlation to the number of years I’ll live or
the number of years he’ll live or the number of
years that she lived. I’ve been thinking a lot about
        life lines        and        heart lines
and if there is any stock to be found in palmistry;
I wonder how my fate line got to be
so muddled with my luck line.  

I see my life the way a clairvoyant would:
in cut-up and choppy strips of film—
I should have seen the omens,
I should have read the smoke signals,
I should have recognized the cards.

Act One began on a waning crescent moon
and continued until its gluttonous belly
had swollen with light; I thought to
myself that craniums made of gallium
often melt the quickest, that blood filled
with plutonium often flows the slowest.  I would
have given my body up to the pathologist free of charge,
would have let him dig his hands into my entrails for
some sort of divination, some sort of revelation—
I was never told to beware the Ides of June
nor the Kalends of November.

Act Two began with the birth of Jack Frost
and has been continuing without intermission for
the past four celestial cycles; I thought to
myself that heart valves made of sodium polyacrylate
often love the most, that sinkholes disguised as
fingertips often feel the deepest.  He whispered
in my ear cliched words about not believing in
God, but how I made him feel blessed, and in
that moment I knew he was the oneiromantic being
that had been shadowing my dreams since 1996—
I guess you could say that, sometimes,
I believe in love.

There is an art to fortune-telling
there is an art to hands
there is an art to bones
there is an art to dreams, and over the years,
I have found them coinciding more often
than not.  In my sleep, in notebooks, in
irises, in mirrors, in poetry, in small little sighs.
I do not know if I believe in fate or destiny, in
God, in auras, or in the Blood Moon Prophecy,
but I do know that I believe in you.  I find myself writing
sappy verses and smelling your shirts and I do
not know if it is because I miss you or if it is because
I’m bored or if they’ve somehow
                       mergedintothesamething.  

I’ve been wondering a lot lately about
where you show up on my hands; about where
he showed up and where she showed up.  I want
to know which lines bisect and which lines fall
short; I want to know if the resemblance between
        mother        and         daughter
continues into that of my palm lines.  I want to know
if my life line matches hers and if my heart line
is even worth giving away—

find me in your crystal ball, make me
your sacrificed animal, look for my body
in the stars, and we will know that
        it was all made to be.

You are a boy of metal
One who doesn't recognize his own value
Precious metals all the same
Their sum only equals your eyes
And neglects the rest of everything you are
Pure silver ringed along your pupils
And gold dancing across the edges
Gallium words melt my heart
This periodic table of you

The church writes the knowledge
of the color of the knowledge
center of the camera, warm Asian
memories of the country of Mexico.
An easy time, Easy voice of the
Chinese wood computer museum.
Your family goddess, Gallium,
choruses of problems that call
the way of the cities of security
of the people and of the Jews who
thought that many children often
said sweet and healthy better smoke
smoker smoke smoking smoke
smoking smoke smoking smoke
smoking smoke smoking smoke
smoking smoke that is unacceptable,
listening to Mary, her mother's
waist a bronze ring