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.