Objects:
Our dead friend
moves our limbs, our mouths,
our lids, our hearts.
Marionettes and
so much more.
He releases our strings
simultaneously. Knows
it’s futile to fight the laws
of physics
even from his side.

Subjects:
Despite the forecast,
rain begins to slap
awake an etherized sky.
Our skin protects
those young spies
dressed in our eyes
testing our voices
as they prepare
to go.

You and I—
none of anyone else’s
goddamn business.
Never mind the mermaids,
we’ve gotten so far
beyond the bath.

Note: partially inspired by T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

When the sun rises, first
where you are,
then an hour later
outside my apartment window,

we can see the flames
of a billion candles
inside each moment
if we resist the urge

to swipe our fingers
through the tips. Just for kicks
the way we did
when we were too young

to believe in death.
I am the governess

of my feelings. You, yours.
A bigger fire begins
to burn through the day
into night. Some liar’s pit

on a hill behind a school.
We could be tossing in
all kinds of combustibles.
My governess lets me

stay out all night now,
no questions asked.

It all hinges
on that first kiss—
the one that already happened,
plotted out a billion years ago.

Not one locked gate,
milk chute for crawling through,
car ignition. Not
a single regret.

Hey, summer solstice,
almost winter solstice here.
We call across an overlapping ribbon
to one another. No echo. No stanza.
No station necessary
in this endless ride. Everything
so perfectly compacted into
longest day shortest night longest night shortest day
stretching every fiber, nerve, strand.
Here we are two specks of gold
glitter stuck to a loop. A pattern
on an ancient sea turtle’s shell. Left earlobe
of a giant with wine-flavored tattoos.
We can’t take our eyes off the horizon
till the inner ear balances. Till vertigo
becomes the rippled gown of Veritas.
We are so broken into imperfect shards
of stained glass, so beyond trick photography
in this crazy 8 ball shaken down world.

I have hidden
my big dripping heart
in a secret place. It hangs
from a rack
out of reach.

I believe no one—
not even you—
knows where. I am
so wrong. You’ve passed
by the site

so many times
over decades and degrees.

Never thought to look
till now. It was so easy
for you to find.

Affixed to that thing

all this time.
To what? Where? There.
A number. A symbol.
A geography without coordinates,
my love.

I think I am touched
by patterns in the dirt.
I believe I am a dirt eater.
I am New England dirt.

I think I am touched
by the way you think.
I believe I can touch you
with the soft side
of a thought.
I am only touching
your skin in a dream
I had four years ago.

I think I am the alphabet
recited backwards
underwater. I believe
I am underwater
hoping to stop fearing my words
will rust. I am a rusted inner hull
of a houseboat tethered to a dock
in the 79th Street Boat Basin.

I believe I am a map
of New York City
drawn with lipstick.
I think I am being memorized
in my sleep. I am all the dreams
I can’t remember when I wake.

I believe I am a sad cedar
in a ghost forest waiting
for someone to make me laugh.
I think I am saltwater
that has kissed too many Midwestern rivers.
I am a freshly dug canal on an island
that turns out to be the kneecap
of a giant soaking in his tub.

I think I am still moving too fast
down a gravel road
in a speeding car. I believe I am
one little scar
beneath my left eyebrow,
another faded on my right cheek.
I am a station wagon way-back
harboring two restless spies.

I think I am a memory
of two guys named Matt mooning us
from a Rabbit as it raced down a boulevard
of beer and 20-year-old bravado.
I believe I am a rabbit
in an otter’s body.
I am really just a fish
with arms and breasts.

I think I am unlicensed.
I believe I am unlicensed.
I am unlicensed
to do anything but this.

I think I believe I am
you. We
are all
a little bit touched.