xxxxv.

in the dark tonight,

I am not the man I should be

but I am thinking of you,

and looking out over the canyon

facing the sea

when the waves rustle,

I hope they whisper a lullabye

across the water

         in your desert city, not so different than mine

but much busier, to you

in your flat, with smoke in the walls,

         and a collection of bottles on the sill, I’m assuming

many different shapes—

--I dreamt we met in Bangkok, possibly

in Singapore, and passed briefly on a rainy street

on a cold day, in front of grey buildings,

and stalls with colorful awnings, it halfway

passed for English summer

and our eyes met, yours hooded by your hair,

and mine shaded by my hat, for a moment

I was surprised and thought, “What an interesting woman—

what is she thinking?” and you thought, “What

an unusual man—where is he going?”

perhaps I saw you again later, by the river

and we walked into the mist along the banks,
with the lights gleaming on the further side

or perhaps we simply exchanged a nod,

recognizing a fellow-traveller in the silent

streets—

--if the palms are kind, they will pass

this note under the crack in your window

xxxxiv.

when the light bleeds away into the ground
--I remember another time, when we wore the dark like a skin
and the ways were all in shadow
the sharp obtrusion, of a broken socket lying in the dirt
pricked my knee, the glass slivered my hands as I ran them
through the tufted grass, and the moon glittered
on the prongs the once held the bulb

--I keep my eyes on the ground, on the pile
of twisted metal, lying near my legs
and kept my sight in my fingers,
rolling the fragmented wires between them
and listened to rustles in the bushes.

--at some point, I sank into myself,
and the moon recognized my ghost
in itself, by some foreign science,
it's light made the ghost of a light
in my hands.

someone once smashed a lamp,
on the pavement--
fleeing, perhaps, or threw it when
they did not need it, and I swing
it before me, when night
crawls up out of the sea, when
it spreads hoary wings over the hills

and science and alchemy,
govern us, in the scattered pieces and luck
lies the mechanism by which
we come hold the day in our hands
to cage the night, in glass and wire
the lights we build,
are the bastard children of the sun
and the glint in our eyes.

WIP

I felt in my chest today

my heart beating beyond my chest

I thought it might rest between your ribs

but I found it had not lodged there

--I hear whispers between my shoulders

the wind whistling in my vertebrae

and I watched,

and bled

it pounding before me 

into the empty air

if you hear the drumbeat in the distance

don't hesitate to stomp

here, I am singing for you, also.

tore itself free--of its bony cage

thrumming in the open air--