I packed it away for the fourth
or fifth time tonight, moving it
between the boxes, cotton cherries
spilling in hands, thinking about the selfie
you sent from the dressing room,
like an audition. You needn't've:
you already had what you wanted.
Now I send the dress back to Dublin
with your other things, because
I don't think you're coming back here.
That thought comes out hard - touches
some places that don't like touching.
I'm wracked long, long into the evening.
Please, come back for this dress -
wear it and come out with me,
we'll go back to our secret square,
just like years ago you can tell me
about the snow brothel again,
I'll eat all your pheromones
& make little moves towards you
in your lover's skin -
white dress with cherries.

I didn't smoke
but she did.
The orange glow
of the orphan
cigarette in the
ashtray grave
was a neat
counterpoint
to a light
greening rain
that lashed
at the window
in the coffee afternoon.

The moon rose
like ice in the spoon.

I laughed with her
& ate
a throw of sun.
Then I didn't eat
at all,
& grief-starved madly,
rattling the flocks
of my ribs.
I was a charismatic
wreck, secrets
blooming
everywhere,
like stalks
of foxglove.
I'd give you
a blossom
to taste
at your leisure,
but it would
stop your heart.

We were
ending
and you
were
afraid
of it
so you
preserved
me like
wine.

Macerated
my heart -
soaked it
in your
words
until
it was
soft,
the pulp
you
wanted
leeching
from
the rest
until it
floated
to the
top
to be
skimmed
lighter than
a throb.

I imagine
the heart,
emptied,
was
supposed
to leave
of its
own accord,
a slump
of husk.

It didn't,
so you
boiled
it away.
It left
on New
Year's eve
down
Chesapeake Street,
a self-loathing
gap in
the air.

Drink, then,
and taste
everything
that made
me what
I was.

I am
a green
wing of
jealousy
cutting
Washington Circle
into arc
after arc.

The matchmaker
is sizing you
for a life,
and I am,
it seems,
not real.

Well,
this unreal
voice
is speaking,
launching
words towards
the burning tile
of sun,
hoping
they will fall
into your
cascades
of thought.

We winter creatures, here in the streets
under the cloud flat, the moon-press,
are bound to our random anywhere points,

with interior images in each: loves, agonies,
strangers we met for a close moment -
the world is filled with us, seeded with us...

The air is cold, it gathers around the mouth.
Dying wisps of speech arch up and away
in small hoods of steam and intention.

Rain digs into my cheek like teeth.
This street is an echo of the next street,
& it's papered with names, so many names.

"Winter's almost here,"
the wind maintains.
Open all the wine and beer,
winter's almost here
& cold will reign -
"winter's almost here,"
the wind maintains.

Whisky bottle's a wishing well,
but wishes aren't free;
whisky bottle's a wishing well,
but wishes aren't free;
when I drink from the bottle
the bottle drinks from me.

I drink down to the bottom,
there's nowhere else to go;
I drink down to the bottom,
there's nowhere else to go;
I know there's no way to win
but I can try losing slow.

Whisky bottle's a wishing well,
but wishes aren't free;
whisky bottle's a wishing well,
but wishes aren't free;
when I drink from the bottle
the bottle drinks from me.

Sitting with you in the kitchen
Talking of anything
Drinking tea
I love you
…
Oh I wish you body here
With or without the bearded poem
-Elise Nada Cowen, "Sitting"


Face the firing squad, Evan -
the dowsing rod pierced memorial waters
coiling in the soft morning triangles.

Morning coffee builds browning steam
as I recall the feeling of lips, hungry lips -
ladies of death and water.

The mind is the borderland.
Where does mind go after the body
returns to the ash salt cycle?

Oh, hell - who cares anyway?
Billions of years from now, the sun eats us,
the sun dies and in dying

it eats its children, like the titans did.
There won't be new stars.
Whatever lump of death I become,

will be scattered into the universal zero
way, way before that. But ... my mind?
Does it just shut down, a key turn,

going cold? A message, read once?
A name known to a few, then unknown to all.
I no longer even desire one person like I did -

I just want to connect a few times
before the lazy azure turns black.
Some company in the evenings.  

I know you understand - remember
when someone slowly touched
the inside of your wrist?

"Let me out now please –
Please let me in"

Sweet woman with black hair
your life is electric
intelligence floods your eyes.
When you laugh for me
your smile washes the world.

Getting closer to you
by breath and romance
like in a storybook.
I'm writing you this poem late at night
while even my candle is asleep.


Siyah saçlı tatlı kadın
senin hayatın elektrik
zeka gözlerinizi doldurur.
Benim için güldüğünde
gülüşün dünyayı yıkar.

Sana yakınlaşmak
nefes ve romantizmle
bir hikaye kitabındaki gibi.
Sana bu şiiri gece geç saatlerde yazıyorum
mumum bile uyurken.

Christmas drifts by
under insensate stars,
under a blue scarf
of evening, under
some ether, under
risers of smoke.

Yellow Spot is poured,
& moments begin
to skip away
into the fallaway rain.
Christmas is red fingernails
and a green sweater.

Christmas freights along
in shovels and palms.
It walks the streets.
It drops into parks, silently.
It sips its Yellow Spot,
or something like that.

The morning I met you
there was a yawn
set in the ground
on N street
where I once worked.

The cranes shifted
great hollows above.

I met you at the intersection,
where a contractor yelled
with the joy of living.

We both marveled at it
and laughed.
I wanted to talk to you,
& my thoughts
walked between us
like a third person.

In this city,
of course,
we opened
by trading
professions,
which felt
a little softer
than it sometimes can,
& things blossomed
very slightly.

We reached the corner
where I branched away,
& I impulsively introduced myself,
& I received your name
in reply.

It stayed in my teeth
for most the day,
& climbed
into my thoughts
where it wound
its way back
into the winter world
in this poem.

I'm a few feet
under the city,
in the cemetery
of the streetcars.
Images celebrating
Stonewall convex
from projectors onto
chilled chamber
of gypsum cement.

I'm here for yoga,
an absolute beginner
with my purple mat,
taking off my shoes
and feeling the rough
floor where the
streetcars were
severed from their
electric milk.
The hour of my
longest spine
is saturated, voices
fed only to me.
My hands slip...
My bones are
symphony.

When the hour's done
I have a new face of salt.
I fold my street of
discovery and shake
the stairs. I climb out
to supermassive clouds,
I feel my shape move,
I'm grateful for you.

A black ****** slips stars
into the withered
low-tide triangle
at Sandymount -
     Where are you?

My clenched chest beats bruises
into a defaced molt of moon
& down the quay, pursuing you,
before acceding to reality:
     You are missing.

You are
so far:
if I tell you
that small green
throbs of ice have
formed night
colonies in the
fir needles,

& that horns
wail car to car,
crying out
for you,
"Where did you go?"

you'll just have
to believe
my reports.

But when
I turn off
this lamp,
and the shadow
snaps from
my hand,
up across
the wall
into the dark -

love,
when you rise
this morning,
that sweet shadow
that slips through
your teeth
was mine.

Out beyond the chilling rain
that crawls along the window pane
you arrive into this city.

I sip coffee and calmly wait,
watch the glimmer of your plane,
out beyond the chilling rain.

The heavy clouds are strangely straight,
and through their splitting throat's refrain
you arrive into this city.

From my body's thin estate,
black capes of breath emerge and strain,
out beyond the chilling rain,

to gather by the open gate
where with your bright campaign
you arrive into this city.

The dawn seems oddly late,
but I know that in this hour's strain,
out beyond the chilling rain,
you arrive into this city.

You know me by now...
I catch you
with messy hair
under the new face
of night, smiling
miles into the workings
of my eyes,
& I'm all undone.

You're lip smoking
as we walk canal south,
the whited angles
of swan wings
tenting the water
beside your laughter.

You know me by now...
your fleet kiss is blown
across a blue broadness
that could never stop it,
never,
          never.

I followed him
step for step
for eighteen blocks.
He vanished
into a pool hall
called Pop's.
When he came out,
I was waiting for him
with a hand full of

You'll tell me that
you hate this
neighborhood,
& the midnight

adventures
I had years ago
down Dahlia St
& Georgia Ave

will strip away,
thin, ******.
I'll notice
the broken walk,

the dead grass,
the trash gathered
in the raw verge,
I'll be embarrassed.

You'll be unhappy
in the new place
you're in, and
I understand but

I won't be able
to reach you.
I'll have learned
by then to shut up,

grip the air on the
silent street, take
some steps back,
let you have

your thoughts.
I won't be able
to save this situation
with magic words

said perfectly
in a pentangle.
I won't be able to
rescue you from

this drift, I'll
only be a tether,
a hand across
the void.

It'll all be new
and foreign
and everywhere is
a walk in the sun.

Washington summer
will be a hanging heat.
Soon I'll chauffeur
you into the slots

of the city, but I'll know
that won't salve
your feelings.
I won't do anything

but walk by your side
until it all ebbs.
Under the radio
tower in this poor

neighborhood
I knew so well,
I'll still my tongue.
I'll step through

the weeds to the home
where I'll hope
you will maybe find
something yours.

I just found
your writing
in the book
you lent me
after we met.

Your name
chokes me away
as it declines across the page
where you signed it,
claiming it.

O darling,
come home,
& take this pen.
I'll lay still
as you assert
your name over me
in your beautiful hand,
rift to rift.

---

I read your notes
one last time
before packing them
for Dublin
with your H&M scarf,
your New York sketch,
some paintings
I'm hoping you like.

You're gone again -
what should I expect?

The day breaks
& the flowers
are frozen
like enamel.

The morning shrug
of sun eats
my resolve entirely.

But what do I expect?
Your life is other steps
& I'm sentimental
if I think otherwise.

What do I need
from you?

I'll step back -
unsustained,
unfulfilled,
but patient.

The sun
pulled your
plane across
the petals
of sea.
On afternoon's
blossom
you're here,
two months
of waiting
fulfilled
by two silver
lines.

Come,
and be my
Renaissance -
share the gift
of your mind
over a cup
of strong coffee,
and talk,
just talk.

You're sitting in profile
in your favorite red jacket.
Your one eye focuses
on maple pages,
a sweep of hair
recklessly dashes
across the water
of your brow.

When the connection drops,
you are frozen like that,
scalloped by shadow,
sleeveless purple shirt
drifting an eclipse
up your arm.

For a profile like that,
I would sell all of this...

Your hair is rich and dark,
but it's a mess, a bird's nest,
maybe a bit oily.
But as you boldly affirm,
you don't need tidiness,
or even beauty.
You fail to object when I throw
your little poem
to the floor on my way
to your body.

Your name is scrawled
in the sun this morning,
& the lilies are bursting
from their green fists -
new shadows croon
from bedsheet tents,
& tiny kites of frost
play telephone lines
under teacup cumulus:
the world is your empire,
even the white lawn
flaming with winter
under the death's head
evergreen is yours now.
My suitcase eyes
will make delivery
before coffee is served.

I.
The tattoo needle
feels like
it's sinking
to scrimshaw
bone.

II.
These words
you say
are sinking
to char
marrow.

A scent like a sword forged with the acid
of plums found by a road,
the sugary kisses that linger in the teeth,
the drops of life sprinkling on the fingertips,
the sweet ****** heart,
the yards, the haystacks, the inviting
secret rooms in the vast houses,
mattresses sleeping in the past, the raging green valley
seen from above, from a hidden window:
adolescence all flickering and burning
like a lamp knocked over in the rain.

Evening yellow,
sun purple plum.
I'm grieving your
absence under
sheet cloud.
Trumpets of night
are moaning,
tomorrow molten.
Kansas Avenue
collapsed into the
center of the earth,
but it's alright.
Here is the Bible
Study school, here
a slip of children,
here is the parish
of weeds binding
corner green.
Everything seems
assembled for you:
you've changed me.

A year ago today,
I walked the dark canal bank,
water chopping the long stone
as we went to the grocery
& bought wine and meat.

We cooked, fed each other,
as the wind came down
to shake the branch.
My mouth was full of love.
My hands played cat's cradle with fire.

Oh, love: you were a camera,
shutter snapping my best days.
I posed against Wilde's grave,
when the magpie played
with your blue boot.

You caught me against the red trees,
you caught me in the flat green.
You caught me among the rare books
scented with old glue, you caught me
with a Guinness in my hand.

It happened a year ago,
but it could have been this morning.
It could have been twenty year ago.
My life has not moved on, at all.
I see other women and feel nothing.

My Irish and Turkish girl:
What did you do to me?
The swans in the canal glanced my way,
the distillery cooked their malt and grain,
& my life froze forever in a high, foreign place.

Little chips of evening
hang in air like
laundry on the line;
they bring to mind
the blue slot branch
dissolving in summer,
glimpsed from the roof,
or the way the metro
cascaded the station
in rippling silver armor,
or our little burial
under sterile spruce -
I remember you
in your dress of cherries,
your cola-tinted glasses
reflecting a gold hoof of sun
as you threw sway.
But now it's winter,
you're gone away,
the evening slithers
over battlements
& night wrenches in
with fists of crows,
the dollop of moon
clots by the back,
the heart sheds a skin.
Nothing's like it was
when you were here.