radio silence

how, and when, and where, and why?
deep, damp shadows shield our faces
from our faces, eyeless
lipless, careening senselessly like
moths, like leaves. i want to take root
in your bones
feel your morning stretches
against the curve of my back
synesthetic kyphosis, i'll call it,
and you'll laugh at the syllables
and i'll laugh at your laugh.
when, and where, and why?
it seems we've been hiking these trails
since time immemorial, since
david touched goliath,
the industrial revolution.
i've watched the smoke of coketowns
curl around your fingers,
shroud you, take you away.
i lost you in the fog, though,
in the natural way,
us both staring at the embers
of a small set of beautiful days.
where, and why?
i imagine us happening again
in a silly, barren place
with modern architecture and undying trees.
a stream flows through our house
and you wake me up with a whisper
the whole of your weight pressing through me.
hello, you say, as if it's the first
time. hello. did you sleep well?
nightmares, i whisper,
your weight too much for my lungs.
about what? you ask,
and why?

memorandum

i must have been swallowed
last night, broken down and
reconstituted as nothing but waste
i am cold-pressed juice, the
healthy, expensive kind that
tempts you at Whole Foods
or in crunchy bodegas after
obliterating yoga in a city
so large it can't help but
swallow people whole,
put them together as
romantics, idealists
destined for love
that is sharply
impossibly
finite

the last night in town

once upon a time
there was a
boy
who slept sound
while i kissed his back
whispering silly
passionate things into his ears

and he was the best there ever was

in which we protect ourselves from the outside in

my persian god looks different in the light
of a computer screen, all soft
and shadowy. more familiar now
(in this glow)
as the remnant of an awkwardness we've left behind

these days we are the kinds of people
who cook good food with each other, and
laugh at my sweat as it pours into
his mouth
and build houses together
and don't assume that any of this
means a darn thing

but of course
the fluorescing stain of light strings tension
along his cheekbones, and i am reminded
that utopias are by nature fiction
and persian gods
belong to a country called Iran
and a time called Before

the strange time

you didn't have the head
for blind horses, my teary rebellions
for days like this, except
worse

(i hid my tail and
called myself a human;
a statement mostly true
but only
from the front)

so can i hold anything over your head
if you don't have one
and if i'm a liar, too
?

(i would like to think i've exposed myself
lying spread eagle on a bed
but literalities fail me
more often than not)

we won't talk about the strange time
despite the aching fact that
strangers are the easiest
people to love

my father has a torn meniscus

and all i can think
is, "how much food
is in the fridge?"

serrate

all of the writers are gone
blown to smithereens, or tied up in
bed. they left us notes
told us not to come looking
they would be hidden
in soft caresses and silken blindfolds
the handcuffs with easy-releases
they would be tied to beds
and wake up with soft fingers on their clavicles.

so the last words ever written
amounted to
"don't call me;
i'll call you."
and the poetry under our eyelids
disappeared into aqueous humor.