the edge of good bye
soft and slow.

the shiver of night
and you fell into the arms
of night
and hope knelt
like a whimpering dog.

the chair across empty

and in the seams of sleep
i find the words I never spoke....

and in a dream,

i can trace my fingers slowly
along your cheek,
feel the warmth of skin,
and the edges of longing
fall into place.

how far is heaven?

I picked up the shards on the kitchen floor so quickly and
vacuumed the last remains glinting
at me from the hardwood so swiftly like if I worked fast enough I
might make negative time, like maybe when I finish my eyes might not even see the crash, I won't remember there are no longer
8 glasses in the cabinet I'll forget the feeling of my

shoulder knocking into the dooframe reflex-opening my
right hand like an arcade claw machine I could
almost grab it suspended midair like locking
eyes not breathing like catching

you like a butterfly like a
song I loved so sorely I wanted it to resonate my skull like a
giant hollowed tuning fork, knocking on your
dorm room door just to smell the smell of your things your navy
bedsheets your hair wax your striped socks your towels, lying
with you on beanbags, hearing my
heartbeat in my ears feeling it hot in my temples and pretending I
didn't

like when you left if I could
dismiss your magnetism pulling me as if I were a
violinist awash in floodlights on wooden concert stages beading sweat on my forehead from the gorgeous aching
weight of a symphony -- if I called it ordinary,
called it
gravity instead and I

split this universe in half spilling blood in the quantum reaction
and grew 6 years older and emotionally not at all,
if I got
undressed for everyone but you and sit alone in cars and
control rooms and office chairs and volleyball courts and
couches in an apartment I pay for, feeling nothing,
I won't
remember the shards like constellations on the floor and that now there are
7 glasses in the cabinet

Some poems seem to write
themselves;
I just move the pen.
Others are like lumps
of clay;
they refuse to be molded;
they need moisture and time.
This one is like
a robin that just learned
to use its wings.
It heads west, on a
gentle breeze, into
a tangerine sky.

When you laugh

It is waking at night
Beneath a waterfall

Seeing clear through
The veil

To a multitude of stars

desire has no mercy
like a red morning light
tickling your feet
it has me transparent
it has me transformed
into roar, thunder, wave
or quicksand in your hands
till the air in between
is fully charged,
radioactive
and insane

The day was long and greedily waited,
in near unspoken secret - like a thing
delightfully and enchantingly wicked.

We are reunited - simpatico - my love, lover and I.
We ravish each other and lavish each other
with flattery, endearments and entire pleasure.

We live sweet centuries in those tight hours.

Happiness changes the tenor of things.
Rains of feeling combine in torrents,
like the tinkling notes of a harp make symphony.

Our minutest nerves are instruments of joy.

Mornings start with exquisite excitement and
the dense reel and stagger of intoxication -
because we’re drunk with the fullness of life.

Leaves on trees called chestnut, linden and hazel, stir
gently in the breeze - those faint shoos and rustles, times
nature’s fractal design - blare, in effect, like terrific trumpets.

At night, as we walk together under cooling summer skies,
the stars in the far-flung firmaments, seem to huddle together
and whisper, like sisters, of life and the mysteries of earthy love.

We are the dust of those constellations - are we but spies?
.
.
Songs for this:
Thank You My Angel by Over the Rhine
Perfect Day by Povo
Goodbye Sunday by Everything But the Girl