mm

my love, my love whose voice is dusk sweeping up the ashes of day
who speaks in swerves and returns vertiginous covering her eyes with squints
my love, whose eyes are torpedoes churning the sea toward me
whose eyes are tropical squalls impending
my love whose neck is a bamboo temple, whose neck is an egyptian obelisk etched with runes of the future
my love whose feet carry an emperor, carry a galaxy, whose feet curve gently toward infinity like the face of the universe
my love whose navel is Aphrodite’s dimple
my love who careens through me on Icarus’s wings, comes close to my heat, a bat overhead swooping
who walks through me like novels, as through walls
my love whose breasts are heaps of cinnamon, warm loaves, painted urns, whose breasts are hieroglyphs of lock and key
my love whose hips beacon and repel: a lighthouse on a craggy shore, sirens singing arias
whose back is a row of pigeons aligned against the sky, whose back is an envelope opening to a love letter
my love whose arms twirl out song and spin like Sufis, enclose me and send me away to my own wishes
my love whose hands are branches tearing at the sky
my love whose wrists are sprigs of mint
whose brow unfurls at my caress, whose brow is a quilt when she cries

in America

boulder

this town
laid out before me
walking slowly down
its snow mantled
quiet, down its
damp asphalt losing
consonants for coffee
this city clothed old
in brick and stone
transitions to soft
bundled in scarves
toward christmas, breaths
plume, pick up “ahh”
sound hands in pockets
i stride streets past
frosted windows
past cafés, people
in patterned sweaters
inside speaking of other
people over piano music
this town reading
newspapers about itself
yesterday predicted snow
now flakes fall
catch in my hair, eyelashes
i go inside, listen to
door hinges, voices
murmur, espresso whir and
footsteps
cars lurch around billowing
rush from light to light
on wet black in this
city they’re hanging
wreaths and strings
of christmas bulbs bright
green, yellow high on brick
façades above storefronts
little boutiques where
dresses and jackets glitter
wet beach sand from
the windows

on love on 5.12.04

if it were mine to,
i’d offer
any word synonymous
with, “universe”
up to you
out of this
language of mine:
love.

but i’m not sure
what that word is,
“everything” is close
containing “nothing”
inside it
but this is beyond
things.

though all the universe,
even this small
dark room,
is comprised
of so many objects,
people.

love is why.
why we breathe
and exchange
even objections.
“without object”
means love
in every direction
those words:
the answer.

9.20.09

the mess of you in my bed,
the whole spread out fling of us
in this weary world where
we topple each other and
our topographies combine,
make new wavy maps like
marbled paper, where we
shimmer and swirl, become
untraceable light
_____________________________

god, grant me more than serenity,
grant me sovereignty to know that
i am always my own, and no one’s.
grant me the will to disbelieve and be
proven wrong, to give space like a
spray of flowers and love myself like
the sky seems to love the wings of
raptors, the cries of starlings.

how i want to call you honey,
by any other name your nectar
(drink of the gods) would be as
sweet. but you bite, like whiskey
leave me
intoxicated by your warm breath
your cold cheek, diverted eyes
ring out: go now before...

and when you sleep, behind your eyes
i battle, the forgiveness of sinners; saints,
and wake up with blood in my hands
like a tempura paint mosaic in the
making. love, you stain me for days.

and how with my iris, cones and rods
am i to look round and revert the inverted
world we’ve created in my full heart.
how am i to relearn to see, see you taking
wing, feathered, picking yourself up from the
mess i’ve been, like my bed after you,
in your whole life.

my tears come with difficulty, force
themselves out of me and fall with thuds
to my thighs. these are the nights full
of stars and friends, where i see the drift
of time swallow me as though i were a single
kernel and not this dynamic cataclysm.