Please don’t ask me
to drive you home.
Please don’t tell me
where you live.

Please don’t get lost
on those winding roads on a bitter
cold evening. I used to transpose
wind chills and windshields.

Please don’t tell me
how to drive. I drove for hours
through the streets of New York
in my dream last night.

Please don’t laugh. No, I didn’t
crash. Yes, I closed my eyes
when I couldn’t see
what lay beyond

the next bend. Yes, I know
New York streets don’t bend.

Please don’t ask me
to turn up the heat
in the cab of the old pickup
parked in the back.

Please don’t tell me
I’m hot. Only I know

how I feel. Please don’t ask
for my number. Cell reception sucks
in the middle of an evergreen forest—
or a nightmare.

How will she know when
to stop running?

If the temperature drops below zero,
what happens to the ornaments
on the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree?

Why does that tree make her sob
and dream of Old Tjikko standing alone
on its Swedish mountain?

What happens when they say it’s too cold
to snow? Who do they think they are

to spread fake news to those boys and girls
looking for a glimmer of hope
on a January night in International Falls?

How can she greet other loners
on the trail tomorrow
with her lips and arms frozen in place?

How many myths have gotten trapped
beneath the frozen surface of that lake?

How do night ice fishermen hook them
to use to swap tall tales
while for they wait for the walleye to bite?

Will she smell the black ice
when she comes down the hill?

What does the fish smell
as it swims long distance
in the middle of its school?

The bridge’s reflection on the water
in the low light
tastes tart to her this time.

If no one waits for you
on the other side of the screen,
then wooden box
means coffin not confessional.

If no one says no to a child
who tampers with ornaments
on a cafe railing,
then there’s the mind
of another sex offender
in the making.

If her sister discovers a new geometry
in bold primary colors,
then she will hold the numbers
securely in her fist.

Then she will keep walking
city sidewalks
till she finds the perfect kelp forest
to release them into.

Then forget restraint.
Throw Bowie
in the lab.
Then push Neil deGrasse Tyson
onto the stage
without a telescope.

If she won’t look in the mirror
on this trip,
then she won’t see
the stars scorching

everywhere—trapped
the way she is
on a #7 train stuck in a tunnel
beneath the East River.

If five years
is a long time
to go without
seeing a real monster,

then a watched Apple
installation progress bar
won’t get bolder
even as an unbearable tartness
begins to tease
the tongue.

If a harpsichord burns
in a yard in England,
then it will first warn us to pause
beneath a single note flame.

Then a radio emergency
alert system
will flood the eardrums
till a scratching on the screen door
fades under manual typewriters clicking
in a row in an empty room.

Then the ocean will beckon outside
as marching boots on wet pavement
get closer and a train
passes overnight

before breaking open
to crickets as they stir
in a rock pile fence
on a hot morning

that spills into a liquid cool
afternoon over a worn hammock
then burrows into a night sky
that a paper hole punch
has transformed
into an eyelet shawl

so that tiny discs
of atmosphere and cobalt blue
dreams can drift downward
as snowflakes
that have no longer
lost their way.

If / then
wire strings
will melt
our wayward myths.

one minor
one too many cocktails
enough rumors

to match each one
end to end

she thought she was
the lucky one
on your mind

after hours
how could she know

your footprints
collecting
in the sand

like so many
coupling then uncoupling
pairs of plastic bottles

left on the beach
at low tide
to float out to sea

to disturb
the balance
of life

no matter how you spin it
slips of paper passed
hand to hand

do they do it
that way anymore

she thought those lemon wedges
perched on the lips
of highball glasses

meant you would survive
the black magic spells
cast over your heads

you would wiggle
through gaps
in the net

to land on kelp beds
positioned perfectly
to cushion your fall

how could she know
you would use your Bowie knife
to cut the flax grid

deforesting
everything below

a sandbar scuffle
in the Mississippi not Atlantic
to blame

not achilles but deeper
where we travel together
along ice and hard-packed snow
on an island in the middle
of the Mississippi
boom

you have complained some
about the weather
more precisely
barometric pressure
now we stretch and wish
those others would join us

success without daydreaming
does not compute
never stop tracking
the teacher
even when
he’s dead

your grandmother’s house
is too small
to store all her memories
she was born into
to walk the sidewalks
no longer an organ grinder

turns out
we are the invasive species
that no shuttered lock
can prevent
from spreading
downriver or uphill

you share my anxiety
for the comma
gone rogue

that expired
New Jersey Transit schedule
I jammed under a leg
to a chest
of drawers
has been there for years

I needed something
to balance my life
as my father slowly evaporated

he was a marathon
of years
older than me

you want me to use
geophagy in a poem
before it’s too late
to run two loops around
Central Park
one more time

no matter how many
of my birthdays pass
as anniversaries
of my father’s birth
the number 8
upright or napping is ours

as the sun sets
the Earth shrieks
rings of blood red
sends waves of anxiety
passing through its layers
to burst from its crust

when I walk outside
wearing headphones
I cannot know if I have begun

to hum uncontrollably
cannot know if it’s that
or a dark sky
piercing scream
that paints horror
on people’s faces

and I do smile
sometimes while I run
despite what you think

help me
walk the streets of New York
a virgin again
help me
ride the subway
a virgin again

help me identify
the next generation
of cells
fragile or sturdy
you can’t be both
says who

help me define the edges
of broken glass
from a porch window
without color
without gasps
for breath

or that delicious sting
that comes when the blood appears

help me
help myself
one more time
as sand gets between everything
and an empty pail
and bent shovel

The vicious circle stops
navigating around itself here
at the bottom

of a half-drunk glass
of Shiraz inside an Irish pub
one northern night in late fall.

A damp, drizzly November
in my soul saves my life.
Always knew deep down

the whale would win.
The time has come
to drop the harpoon,

to pick up the oar.
As I row toward what could be land,
I see how easily I might drown

without a second oar,
without that hand reaching

to help me leap from the boat
as it hits the beach.

when the left hand disappoints
more than the right ever could

and another A train catches fire
and you still love to write

about your irrational love affair
with the New York City subway

when you want to laugh
and all the jokes turn sour

on the tongue
your mouth shut \ jaw clenched

when you see an ad in the New Yorker
for passion \ drama \ Russian romance

a Tchaikovsky marathon
to be performed

by the Minnesota Orchestra
on its home turf

and you lose your place
in the geography of reading and dreaming

when water drips
from the basement ceiling

and you wish you could fold a flood
and put it in a drawer

and never yell
FIRE again

when you accidentally eavesdrop
on the Lyft guys at the next table

and wonder where
all the girls are

when missing puzzle pieces
articulate the spirituality

of imperfection
in Leonard Cohen’s face

when #MeToo triggers flashbacks
to a large empty brick house

and unidentifiable jazz
leaking from the radio

and the weight of him on you
muffles the NO’s

and all the self-hatred
that goes into climbing

in and out of
open bedroom windows

when the pain apparent
under transparent skin

shouldn’t lead you
to a wooden box

confessional

and the trombone player
will never kneel the penitent’s light on

when the messiest clean artist you know
is you \ and grime writing purifies the soul

I hear you dance
with my hands

your lips congratulate your feet
for making way for taller ships

I would return
to Staten Island

for the kills
not the politics

I would return to the scene
of our crime

of passion if
I could remember how

to get there
you can’t get there

from here where the sky fills
with darkness so early

Martha Graham and Helen Keller
chose another storied route

delineated by vibrations
stirring the air

and those tiny talking bean stalks
have more to say

soliloquies always carry
a hint of distress

if a painting falls
off the wall

it won’t land
on your head this time

it will implode
like those towers

never mind
next time

never mind the questions
I ask you

text after text
because I can’t help myself

it’s an abstract
because

you already drew all the figures
to be hung

ice and snow patches
before not under

the overpass
still catch me off guard

let’s drive across
the Bayonne Bridge’s new roadway deck

before they dismantle
the old one below

too late

let’s cross
it anyway

you drive
I’ll steer

she fears if she eats
lavender, her cloven nature
will resurface

it’s not a question
enemies do lurk
in passive aggressive shadows

dog leashes loosened
too much to create a barrier
between this time

and the other night
those raccoons and their obsessive
compulsive hand wringing

they’re not that clean
the stories I told you in bed
were not that dirty