on the way to fort cilluffo

i will wrap me in you
and forget to hate my ribs
enjoy my bad jokes
taste wedding cake i've
long since digested;
the only thing outside
is street lamp light
passing quicker and quicker
until we crash
into darkness, where
the only thing outside is star light
standing heavenly still;
it is so chilly on this side of love
and my coat is so thin.

wine charm

what would you say
if i could imagine the first trout
you ever help me catch
the way we break my spirit
by cooking it perfectly
and take each other to bed
our love lit only by the fire
our hands entwined as only lovers can
a future memory
stretched thin across our borders
as creases settle at the corners of our eyes;
yours first, of course
but you do not realize
it is only from laughing
at symbolic trout
and questions never asked.

black point

half of me is the ocean
hugging a cement-flattened jetty
where little boys inside of their skins
beg the cold sun to sing them out to sea;
where they ask bits of salt and sand
to cling to their hairs and ankles
so that i can go with them
wherever they go
hugging them like a jetty
and smelling of a journey in reverse
calling them back to a place
once called home;
now i, little child
shiver, ask the same of myself, my better half.
"i lost many futures," i say from the inside of my skin,
holding the tide at bay
both halves of me hugging the jetty
too afraid of my own current
to wash the grit from my hair
"i lost many futures," i say again
in case i didn't hear
the first time around
"we all did," i echo back
and press my weight into the jetty once more.

unlike

unlike love
unlike a bed of snow
unlike breaking leaves
unlike a newborn fawn
unlike summer gardens
unlike morning prayer
unlike a solid lunch
unlike waking up
unlike antidepressants
unlike silent "hellos"
unlike crying goodbyes
unlike watching people go
unlike distance
unlike anything
at all
but do not,
i beg you please
do not
unlike us

we were almost neighbors

we were almost neighbors
you and i
cradled in gauze
of the same spider's web
not waiting, exactly
but knowing:
time
will not wait for us
it will cast us indiscriminately
like pollen
or dandelion seeds
and we will be far, far apart
and we will be eaten by different spiders
on different webs

you, beautiful

you
shame at having wanted
and not gotten, expected snow
but greeted with rain;
it has been snowing three days now
and though i long for cold
i seem only to feel shame
at having wanted
and not gotten, expected
a tickle of joy in the heart
of my heart
but greeted with a nighttime tremor
an echo of delirious inevitability;
shame, at having wanted
and not gotten, expected beauty
but greeted with
humanity.

darling

darling, sing me to sleep
i am caught
between
wet sidewalk, an open window
my overactive radiator
the ache
of saying calmly
"goodbye"
to so many futures,
so torn from
the simple peace of
loving freely
no: being free to love
wrenched from that
by apoplectic winter
storming ceaselessly
crying
mercilessly
i am stuck awake
floating between futures
begging for your song
to call me
down.

newbury street

it was greying in boston
and us, too, greying
we and the sky, the clouds and us
the water not yet decided
between crystal and calm
and me, i, wondering if you remember
the names of all of your lovers and
if you do, do you remember
the feeling of their lips upon yours
or do you find that these things fade
turn grey, all old, all gone;
we were greying in boston-town
hoping for a glimpse of spring blue
fall yellow, summer green
winter white, even, when water stops
being wet and starts being dust
but hope is only sadness in denial;
grey is only sadness in disguise.

simple

the sweet carousal of sunrise--
lips like icicles, melting under your watch
and i watching you melt beneath mine
let's be rivers, you and i
or streams, tributaries, flowing
for a common cause, our soft banks
open to passing travelers
open to the threat of diversion
or damnation, or simply the lips
of new rivers, formed by new rains
let's run in parallel and meet at the end
where it's all one, really
travelers, lovers, friends
tangled, for sure, but not really wanting
to be untied

first fall

it isn't really a blanket like they say it is
more like sand that sticks, sticks to the trees
and rocks first, and then the road, overpowering
its thermal mass, overpowering
our happy little hearts, forcing us inside
it is more like a giant sheet of gauze
all of us caught up and tangled
stretching and pulling at the weather
like it is space-time itself

lily pads

you drift first, and i'll follow
mirroring the way you dip and fall
we'll obscure together reflections
of a waning day, just playing
cartesian sorrow
you one point and i another
watching you noticing me
floating away.

habit

it doesn't seem real now
moss-covered days
trading glimpses, heads at angles
air kisses, one from you
two from me
the same coffee from the same barista
day, night, day
effortless weeks
sometimes when i see your ghost
my lips kiss the names
of everyone i've ever loved
before finding yours
so it doesn't feel real, to dream
your creased eyes
holding in them what they held
burning peace
dust floating listlessly in the clouds

day, night, day
just one ship, waiting in one port
indifferent to the passing of time

bad juju

i
sinkhole
squandered investment
broken down car
(named bertha
(i love her))
reticent to start
battery burnt out before
mine, but mine
is on its way
bought her used, used, used

crater lake

what if you were right
and that was the peak of fall?
gasping for air i'm surprised
that it's crisp, now, like apples
that suddenly apple pie time came
and went, and i spent my time
pretending to be a leaf, and i didn't bake a single pie,
what if i really can't recover, and
california ceases to exist entirely
and so do you? even if it is possible
to erase something so massive,
winter is already here and i didn't even
invite it in. it would take me
much longer to erase california
than it will for the snow to erase me.

how

me, little tile of flesh
mottled, remodeled, messed-up-fucking-mind
feeling like cirque du something:
ineloquent, inelegant
tracing your contours, all you
nameless judges, begging your
caresses, even for a moment
knowing and not knowing that
i am good, great, fantastic
completely unwanted.
in my new house the walls are
perfect abs, something worth
staying up for
or at least something worth
the sentence: "no thanks"
the floor is all tiles, tiles for ages
of all colors and all cuts all chosen
by me, ringleader, circus-master
not for once, not this time,
not the elephant or
the monkey
or the clown

time

loving you
is like loving the wind
eventually it dies down
but it never truly goes away
and in nine years,
when i am thirty-two
and you are forty-one
and the ocean is still in our pockets
and the forest still sprouts mushrooms
and the little fish still bite
perhaps i will have learned
to whistle on tune
filling the wind with stories
that your children
and my children
will only hear
as they sink to bed at night,
the leaves rustling in a quiet breeze.

marcel breuer

so many languages with which

to say simple words

tricky words

words with no beginning and no end;

this year is dedicated to you

in the way a book is dedicated to a mother

brother, sister, lover

a tribute to inspiration;

not a long, unending sigh.

at least my boots are blue

could i heal
if i listened to the right song
or asked the right questions
waking up to brown november
after a soft october dream
sights outside my sill
the spitting image of new london,
but not. waking up to brown november
not being home, not swathed in love
is that what adulthood feels like
and could i heal if i just
said the right words
or found the right job
or kissed the right lips
asking for nothing but a soft october man
to follow the strange september fall
the forest fire that took the leaves
waking up to brown november
not in school, splashing through puddles
the walk to work carrying me leglessly
back and forth, forth and back
waiting for the cold dust of silent
december, not at home, not in love
not huddled in front of fire
with warm blanket or hot cocoa
could i heal if i just woke up, one day
put on my blue boots
and forgot to hurt?

April, two years ago

two-spirit

you caught me

doing what you want

on a spring day, when everything

seemed ready to collapse;

your heart–so massive

that you'd cleave it in two–

and me. 

meiosis of the lungs: two breaths, two gasps,

one air.

i'm okay

i'm
okay.

halfmoon beach

i do not dread the time
when we call this time
"that time" and laugh and do not kiss
(or do) and do not touch (or
do); we
do not need to listen
for the sound of
a rock dropped in a pond
many years ago
that scared away all the trout
and pressed us closer
your flesh the only flesh
i truly wanted (desired,
adored) your arms (legs, soul)
wrapped gently around my (arms, legs, ribs)
soul -
we are not so foolish as to
wrap ourselves in any direction now
but up, warmed by embers
that will neither flame
nor fade.

my okcupid profile

can i possibly be as beautiful

as you have described me

it doesn't seem that way

in words, i do not know

the names of poets

cannot describe the relationship

between rain and cement

i do not make le ciel immense

only drink it in

and you, my glass

how can you ask me

to be beautiful for someone else?

i don't know how, really

what my favorite songs are

or where is my favorite place

only the echo of laughter

i can talk about that

but thinking about other men

on a first date

seems like such poor form.

can love fracture like a bone

and can you set it straight again

with two pictures

two hundred and fifty words

fifteen questions?

hypothetical children notwithstanding

we're both begging for the answer to be yes.

unpleasant hypothetical

i can imagine the poems i will write
when eventually (perhaps)
we fall away
one is:
if i were to meet you again, i would
and if i were to love you again, i would
and if i were to kiss your lips
and bid you goodbye
i would
and i would never have moved
to california, and you
would never have moved
to new hampshire, and
all of the cabins in the world
could not have contained the fire
we built.
that is how the poem would sound,
and i would not understand
a word.

untitled

i am
a broken lightbulb
warm skin under a floodlight
silent limbs and a shudder before sleep.
a plea:
come back to me, love
and then beyond;
unbreak our crystal
take back your smell
cut down the forest
suck the river dry
erase the milky way
do not have touched me;
find everything exactly as it was
preserved, touched only by you
and the men you had touched
before the space in my lung
was born.
make the leaves green again.
the morning is empty
and my heart leaks pinot noir.

to be deserving of hate

christmas come early
such that frost grows like
lichen, such that i grow
without you.
what is it to be deserving of hate?
wind-chapped cheeks, the kindest of souls
eyes that twinkle for many men
hearts that ripen with distance
futures abandoned?
next door, a dog whines
unendingly
for a certain body.

chasing yellow

a giant pulling his giant

head up from the earth, you

pulling roots up

and me, pulling hair, the earth

rocking us gently to sleep.

could it be, i ask, touching your

dimples, could it be that

if we run fast enough, we

will never fall? but eventually,

you answer,

there are no seasons, and then

how will we measure our love?

the truest

"i love you
too much
to see you celibate."

they survived us

funnily enough, we knew when enough
was enough. an oddly matched
matchbox, a sudden flame.
they survived us, they survived us, they survived
despite the bloody nights
and crying over versace shoes
they burned longer
and we burned out
while i burn paraffin oil, pore
over another man's pores, not thinking
of you, nightmaring of him.
they survived us, goddammit
even though i thought i knew
that love was something calmer and
warmer. in the city, with no seasons
and many bridges, with unwanted jobs
scabbing over your scapulae
where there used to be wings
they are surviving on cheap wine, silky
blackout selfie nights.
and of course we knew
when enough was enough
which is in itself an act of love
but when the hitter is happier
and the bruised one is lonely
it seems unfair that they got to survive.

cologne

those halloween tremors

those soul-echoes

touching me, button to back

you do what the best can do

which is smile

and wait for nothing

to blow away the ghosts

petit finale

we are nighttime creatures, sold
on the promise
of daylight joy
signing papers
and earning wages
to be
spend on fruits and wine.

royal mountain

coucou toi, you say
dipping me in winter before its time.
when you are gone, truly,
i will be so happy for you
for the sun,
for the satisfaction, for the many skins
and the many stems and the many hearts
that you will inevitably touch. for
now, a touch of sad when i wake
a few short breaths while i walk to work
the melancholy of autumn
mixed with the beauty of speed.

closets

fumbled cash into
the tip jar
satisfied with wasted dimes
stealing glances at windy roads
gusts, guests, gusto
a log cabin and a fire
illogically coinciding and hoping
the latter does not consume the first.
do you remember
when words were uttered
not about boys?

autumnal

so prepared to fall
that i have missed a meeting or two
forgotten a friend or so
looking at leaves and smiling at you
thinking of the fireside night
with wine and unseemly confessions,
you, my lover who has loved my lover
curled up with me, happy as a cat;
i will touch you until the sun goes down.

framing effects

if i look out of my window
i can see twelve windows
looking back at mine.

fretting

i think you would like me
the way you liked me three years ago
confusingly, obtusely, stupidly
letting me into worlds that ultimately
were. not. mine.
is this how men feel when they come home
from the moon? the familiarity and comfort
is not exciting or scary, not billowing or bold
gravity exists and it keeps me humble
and independent
and inquisitive
and you would love me now
if you didn't already know that love
ruins that which one loves.
so let's orbit, never cross paths
and i will learn to strum the songs we used to listen to
while you learned about tensile cables
and i learned about robotic ants
and both of us learned
that two is not so bad.

i think you would like me
if you hadn't crashed that car, the
blue one with the frozen door; if you'd
never seen me howl at the moon
in lonely joy. if you hadn't noticed
our orbit widening, our moons
fighting, our star deciding
what sort of star it was.
all of that uncertainty, like the faith of science
was too much for you and certainly
too large for me to contain
all on my own.
you lost one religion, and then you lost another.
driving in your car, lights dim,
you disapproving of my late night
medicine run, of my need for
medicine in the first place
of my knowing
that you need them too
you crashed, and crashed, and crashed
we didn't notice until months later.

i think you would like me
if you had treated me better
not blamed me for my pain.
i think you would like me
if you could have seen the moon
that i was on, the lightness of living
when we held hands.
i think you would like me
if i wanted you to like me anymore
if i tried harder to keep on liking you
if i just let you be
if i just didn't talk
if i didn't cry
if i sat against your wall, writing word after word about robotic ants
listening to the music settle in and grow inside of me.

there are certain talismans i have kept from our space romp
and you can't have them back.

peanut butter

you were and are strolling through my phobic depths
each footstep, breath, leaf taken in
you've seen it and crushed it and shown it me in
full-frame, 35mm, HD, with so cinematic an eye
could you not have seen this coming?
you, pushed into me and me into you by some cosmic
force that ultimately you've given up on
or no longer find tragic or peaceful or lonely or serene
all of those arts of emulsion we almost mastered
you invoke yourself in my morning prayers,
rituals involving push-ups, peanut butter, rice protein
(chocolate flavored to mask the insecurity)
the simple act of unscrewing the jar can unscrew my ducts
and my breakfast will become salty
and i will consume far too much sodium
like your brother
who shakes before he tastes, who acts before he thinks.
returning to the task in my hand: breakfast, insurmountable.
bananas, broken by palm, coconut oil (an unsustainable balm),
in the protein, in the milk. my hand is stuck
on the oily lid of our teddie peanut butter,
your favorite and by extension mine,
refusing to open for me or desiring to prolong the struggle
how easy to blame a teddy bear instead of oily physics.
i sputter and bump and curse and cry
memories rubbing off on my shirt, permanent stains, spilling
over the counter, dirtying the floor, tightening my shoulders
grabbing at my jaw, and then
i move to the sink for a rubber glove. the smack of its
approval lines things up straight.
i pick up the jar, thinking i've made morton obsolete
and read:
"separation is natural."

dealing with it

i am stuck
somewhere beneath the haze of
unfettered belief, the diagnostic release:
that final breath of understanding
as you hold back the tears and think
"this is it, this is an answer"
even if it is not the answer, even if, even if

your grey and squinty and fading eyes
don't linger on me much these days
maybe because i'm not looking for them
or can't; or maybe because it's true
we've changed
(indisputable, everything changes all the time)
and the shame i feel now is just the shame
of not trusting myself
enough to trust myself
when i feel unloved.

devilish food

the second hour of not getting up is the hardest.
neck pain from dehydration and
life pain from separation feel the same way;
sleepy, sleep, i want to disappear again
into the days of no fear
(none spoken)
no complications
(nothing broken)
no late night desolation, but of course
something snapped at twenty one
and i've got a switch that flips
every night
and you've got a future
that i once helped you put on hold
waiting for you just off the J train.

one day you'll roll on back
and i will lay covered in gauze
and you will see that i have made this bed a cocoon
and i will, finally, drink some water and breathe
beautiful as all get-out
and i will fly away from here
and you will watch and wave.

title wave

this is the way the world bends
into five colors, converges down
to a point on a pedestal: i
my brain and body
my bitten nails and the hair just above my elbows
dolefully and sometimes desperately
love you. not in a nasty, sobbing at work
kind of way (i sob at work for entirely
other reasons (but that's not the point) like
world hunger (but mostly my own hunger)
or
having forgotten to take my meds)
but in a silly, chest cavity collapses kind of way;
"you take my breath away" is a song about somebody
being suffocated by their lover
and loving it
while "take my breath away" is a song about asking for that kind of love
in return.
five different colors, all white, all roads
lead to you-know-where
scarily strolling along
walking on broken grass
hollow, hollow, hollow
we'll never love truly
till the point is off the plinth

just me

when was the moment you realized
that i was just a boy
no more or less than a summer night in normandy
another stargazer, somebody probably looking at you
the way you looked at me
when you decided to venture out of the jungle
and into my trees
not that i'm complaining, you were always a queen
that watery, toned, taught and teetering woman
who made me feel cool by thinking i was--
well, who knows? three years and maybe two hours
i gave you a school, a best friend, i'd like to think, at least
i like to think that i am the nexus
the beginning of all things
so that when i have faith in you
i also have faith in me.