It's a sound
It's black as the woods
It's unknown and
it burns my tongue.

I measure time
in concertos
&
carafes of coffee

I thought I needed you
to prompt me to be
better
but as the seasons
alter from wearing
shorts to wearing
sweaters
I'm convinced
with you or
not
the rain couldn't
be
wetter
so I'm conjuring
a thousand words
and writing you
this letter.

The moths fly in
to catch the
light
because I leave
the windows
open,
I find them
fallen on my
sill,
hard and crisp
as death-
dried flowers
losing color,
fading away.

I always leave
my windows open
and let everything
in.

the animals
the light
the smoke from a
neighbor's chimney
or a fire burning
far away-
the moths
the wasps
the black beetles and
gnats
and romance-
and you-

you are not excluded.

I always keep my
porch light on,
my windows propped
up
letting the world see
everything I am
and August,
you came in-
but
I still
can't shut
the window

I'm so afraid of
you leaving the way
you came
suddenly
suddenly
suddenly through an
open window
and this time I might have
to shut myself in
because I've never
found a light like
you

I'm like the moths
who look for the light
in my window
and get too close
and fly in, head first
without restraint and
incinerate

you're too bright and
I'm too open
and I think that
this is
it.

Like wild blackberry, I have
Invaded and I can't
Stop myself from growing.

Whether you're
on the Pacific
with tide pools at
your feet,
ankle deep in
muddy, brûlée
sand, crab
shells empty with
the evidence of
ocean time,
or you're standing on
a stage inside
a hall, instrument
in hand to play the bow-
tides of the orchestra,
cases empty with
the evidence of
opera time,

and whether I'm in
the city,
gunshots and nomads and
locking the windows at night,
or I'm back in the valley
where the screens have fallen out the windows
now and
the cicadas
sing like a choir
and you're their God

I'm resigning to loving
you,
             endlessly

defeated and in bliss, admitting
love.

I stepped into
a book store
with you
and saw the hanging
words
up to the
ceiling,
overhead
gazing down at
me, the
oddity in
a bookshop

and to the back
of the place you
wondered.

to the
dusty corner
of a shadow where
you finally
called my
name.

Then as I peered around the
shelves of a
thousand pages,
my eyes
found your hand
outreaching,
pointing,
to the end of a
corridor
where a
broken
golden frame
of butterflies
sat uncared for
in its lonesome.

and against
the glass, I saw
myself, my face,
my reflection in
a coffin holding
the decorators of
the sky and then

the shopkeep in his
boredom choked
"she's found
the dead
butterflies..."

I hope that I'm not
scaring you
away

I know that my
enthusiasm's
unnerving

that my endless
joy is
over-
whelming

and that some-
times the
words can't
be contained
like an open
cage of
birds

Candles burning
through the night
red wine, the
deeper burgundy
velvet shadow of
your hands

you falling

the orange
Jack
O' Lantern moon-
suspended in the
smoke filled
summer
sky

I'll watch your bottomless eyes
fill with me-

me, falling.

through the end, the passage of dark, radical
mysterious need and
desire

Where the moon can watch us until the stars
swim away, choose to stay,
play trapeze in the sky
or lose their blaze

Darling I need you to
demand me like
the moon, openhandedly,
devotes
to the sea.

The moths fly in
to catch the
light
because I leave
the windows
open.
I find them
fallen on my
sill,
hard and crisp
as death-
dried flowers
losing color,
fading away.

I always leave
my windows open
and let everything
in.

the animals
the light
the smoke from a
neighbor's chimney
or a fire burning
far away-
the moths
the wasps
the black beetles and
gnats
friendships and
falling outs and
you.

you are not excluded.

I always keep my
porch light on,
my windows propped
up
letting the world see
everything I am,
slither in,
crawl in,
waltz or
saunter in I
still
can't shut
the
window

I'm so afraid of
everything leaving the way
it comes:

suddenly
suddenly
suddenly through an
open window

and here I am trying
not to be a
moth
who looks for the light and a
rip in the screen,
and gets too close
and flies in, head first
without restraint,
she incinerates

Life is so bright and
I am so open,
propped open,
stationary and
liberated

as an open window.