when she loves,
she spills over.
she makes a mess,
a mud puddle.
so, lover, be creative
to stay afloat.
if you must bring
a boat and a paddle because
the way she loves drowns—
heart always full, lungs out of breath.
your ribs expand
to take in some air.
your sigh, despair
of loving instead.
maybe like her old flames, soon, you too
would wish
her love burns less.
but, she is meant to engulf all,
like the waves that hit the shore
with unrelenting energy.
she is meant
to be consumed
by the whole of your body.
no, she cannot water down her love
for you, for anybody.
and so, lover,
just hold her steady.
any less is unworthy.

Run river, run wide,
Don't let them dam you, be free,
Run river, run long.

Power flexes
downward:

a hulking, indifferent
appendage

obscene in its
obviousness,

but the obviousness is the
point,

you remind
me.

This latest one was only twenty-
six

and seemingly healthy, but no
matter—

in Hokkaido by now the
larches

have all dropped their
needles,

and the fumaroles of Mount
Asahidake

still hiss, even while
covered

in heaps of snow. I wish
that

you could take me there. I
wish

that we could set
off

into that pale oblivion and never
return,

immersed for the rest of our
days

in the frigid, accurate
waters

of Nature’s
reality.

But she has no dominion
here,

you remind
me,

and we are all just tourists in this place
anyhow,

sidling beneath cornices and sidestepping
crevasses

aslope an angry volcano in
winter,

that warm, glowing lodge at its
foot

seemingly never
drawing

any
closer.

the river breaks open (like ribs)
unmaking the earth in quiet tongues,
it flows unendingly:
she
does
not.

each stone hums her absence (or mine?)
while its waters slip soft knives
between the spaces where a heart
once folded neatly into hers.

the lake is still, an unfinished
sentence—its surface holds nothing
but sky, which has always been
indifferent. I do not reach
into its shallow silence;
I know it would not forgive me.

(oh
the sea).
each wave rises only to fall,
its breath (a sob, a scream, a sigh)
pulling the shoreline apart grain
by aching grain—
and i stand
where foam clings to my feet,
wanting
to
follow.

i write of the water because
it moves and I cannot.
because the tide swallows her name
and spits it back (broken,
empty,
wrong).

grief is not a thing
it is everything
it is the way my chest
folds in on itself like a ruined map.
it is the sharp edges of nothing
scraping against everything
until only this ache remains.

and when the river hums, when the lake stills,
when the sea pulls me open
just to leave me raw,
i know—
absence is the heaviest thing
i will ever hold.

Soapy hands
Frosted future
          Pure icelantic
Beauty

Memories fade in water


But grow and form with
Pressure

Resilient    but fragile
I'll never be a diamond

I wish to leave this path,
    to view from water's edge,
this creek become my hearth,
    by lake to which I pledge.

to wade with Oceanids,
    my boots submerge in mud,
adopt which day forbids,
    silk flashed away in flood.

Waves in handmade glass
in old peeling wooden panes —
Ripples on the pond.

Come,
Dip your toes in,
Delight in the silky cold
That refreshes both
Body and spirit.
Notice how your breath
Gasps, reciprocally stiflingly 
and in liberation.
Come and enjoy
The simplicity.