I’ve had to drag
out the color blue
just before it turns
purple. Have been confused

why people don’t carry
a pen. Writers too.
Have not asked
for coffee with walking room.

Now I will. This day
comes with a ruler
to measure the distance
between inexplicable Earthly

sadness and each depression
on the surface
of the moon. The impressions
I’ve made before all of them

never last. I cannot answer
the question
would I have jumped
in to save that first lover

who drowned in his own
pool, if I’d known.
Pool of what? Sweat?
Desire? Betrayal? Boredom?

Vomit. Mysterious
scratches on my arms and neck—
not so mysterious
when you have a cat.

If I had worn a raspberry beret
that day in May
31 years ago, maybe the car
wouldn’t have crashed.

She would still be here—water
dancing. If.

Not so secret all-night rave
parties at Colin’s house
on Colfax. He was so generous
with his hospitality—

beer, vodka, cocaine, X,
what he thought were expressions
of love. So proud
of his scammed copy

of The Black Album.
Colin, Steve, and me.
A threesome all that first winter

I didn’t know I wanted
to survive
in Minnesota.

“When You Were Mine”
became our soundtrack
that one night.

We wrote The Ecstatic Uptown Chronicles
over an exquisite corpse
one 72-hour day.

The Uptown, First Avenue, the Entry
was The Ashtray back then.
The CC Club. Even Glam Slam

once or twice. Colin wanted to dance. Steve
was always listening to the music, lilting,
always drinking.

So much dark energy
can explode through
the fiercest windchill.

Now you’re gone.
All of you.
Even Prince.

Left behind, I stand here
by myself outside the club
in broad daylight

without an answer.
Maybe I really did move here
because of Prince,

not that other guy.
So many musicians,
so many lakes, the land

of 10,000 treatment centers.
I’ve wanted to dance

my life away. Wasted
too much time
asking why.

Small for her age,
the girl likes to sit in the front
where she can see
the world without vertigo.

One morning, she misses
the bus. Her mother drives her
to the next stop.
The front seat is taken.

She finds a spot
on the bench in the back
where bumps and unwieldy turns
lull her to sleep. Don’t ask how.

No one looks for her
for hours that could have been days
if she didn’t wake up
when she did

to find a snake hissing
down the aisle.
No one can hear her scream.
She throws a book at it.

Misses. Flies out an open window.
Hits an elderly man’s shoulder
as he takes his morning walk.
He sees the girl—not the snake.

She opens another window,
climbs out. The man moves
his walker into position beneath it.
She slips out, lands

on the walker. The man returns
the book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
They shake hands. She’ll never fall
asleep again. Some signs lie.

“I tattoo an anchor on your back
you sink to the bottom.”
—Ingunn Snædal, “Summer Love”

I try to eavesdrop
inside the Newark Airport.

No one says anything
of interest.

A kid with braces chews his bagel loudly, disgustingly.

Finally, I hear a mother
ask her sons:

“Did no one
eat at home?

In case I didn’t hear her,
she asks again,

shouting with a north Jersey accent:
DID NO ONE EAT AT HOME!

Forget the question mark.
It’s a declaration.

It’s Palm Sunday.
Passover begins tomorrow.

The sweet and sad parts
of the story to be told.

I overhear myself
talking to myself a few weeks back.

Inside the Keflavík Airport,
the water that comes out

of the Dyson Airblade
is scalding hot

because it’s Iceland.

And the air jets blow water around
like a geyser

because it’s Iceland.

We’ve almost made it
across the Labrador Sea.

Back on US soil far
from anything resembling lava rock,

a toddler kicks a trash can
(or is it a recycle bin), and giggles.

No one says no.
No one says anything.

A man wearing a yarmulke
sits at a table with a boy

in a Yankees cap.
Both redheads.

Emily D. was a redhead.
I saw a curly lock of her hair

yesterday on display
at the Morgan Library.

I could not hear her poems.
The tour guide was speaking too loudly.

I tried not to eavesdrop—
but failed.

The water gushing
from those black rocks looks hot.

The sky tastes green
with a lilac halo.

Her braid is loud against my fingertips.
She can smell my voice five kilometers away.

Her reply is only slightly salty
with a hint of ginger

till I awaken in the middle
of another fractured night.

if dandelion is no longer a color in the box
if you can’t see the Northern Lights tonight
if my cat yowls at nothing in the morning
if you decide not to move to Brooklyn
if these words get marked with a yellow highlighter
if this building never gets built
if that wall doesn’t come down
if I don’t recognize you either after seven years
if you end up being my last
if I refuse to admit it
if I never wear a swimsuit again
if the geothermal hot pot makes me a liar
if I swim in a blue dress one more time
if I close my eyes before jumping in
if then maybe you instead

end this,
end us, or
end anything

with an Oxford comma?
These things
I will never give up:

black coffee,
pink socks,
saltwater swims,

Assuming you are a compass,
the white jet flies
into an eastern orange sky.

No clouds or bird’s eye views
of city or farmland grids
to distract you,

it has nothing to do
with compassion.

If when the plane lands,
you keep it this way,
photographs you take

will be in focus.
Voices will convey words
you want to digest.

Local will mean local.
It has nothing to do
with compassion.

What you know
will be what you know.
Your memory will kick in

(or not). No one
will tell you

what to taste
or what it tastes like
on your tongue.

You will remember
you have toes and elbows
and earlobes.

There is no east or west
pole. The top
of your head will tingle

in a good way.
It has nothing
to do with compassion.

Feel free
to cry over the death
of department stores.

Your hiking boots
will arrive
by special air cargo.

Who knew your feet
could get so big.

If a person takes a selfie
and never posts it
on Instagram or Snapchat

or Tumblr or Pinterest
or even Facebook,
does the photo exist?

Does the self really exist?
It has nothing to do with compassion—

how you can become you again
without needing
to be recharged.

When an equine monster
with eight limbs
looks you dead in the eyes—

its forehead oculus
watering from the force
of steam exiting its nostrils,

consider this:

It might be
true love,
or indigestion.

Consider this:

The island might be
volcanic, or it might
have a crush on the green sky.

only one letter
separates Ireland
from Iceland

ire from
I’ve forgotten
my heritage

beneath a slab
of hope
to catch a glimpse

of the aurora borealis
before it’s too late

I sew initials
into the heart
of the base layer

and stand before
the stage door
wondering when

I might be
let back in
to confirm rumors

green room
green pasture
green sky

A prophet won’t stand
on line
or wait to be asked
to leave.

A strand of hair
gets baked
into the cake
and ruins her

life. No one remembers
smelling the odor
of singed death
till it returns

to torture a child
into adolescence.

A carpet whisperer
and light whisperer
laugh under
a half full moon.

They read fractured myths
and ingredient lists
to one another
without squinting

or harming the soles
of their feet.
They remind each other
not to forget

the boy who sold rugs
most of a life
snuffed out
too soon.

A visit
to Vertical Endeavors
could help her
confront her vertigo

or push her too far
off the wall.
She would rather grasp
a real cliff rock

overlooking a remote hollow
and risk
falling into
a black hole

where there are no alternatives
to the truth.

He tries not to stare
at the woman.
She could have been
in a brawl,

or it’s Ash Wednesday.
A dandelion print
drapes legs and the walk
they take

to see and be seen.
A High Line modern
dance performance
ends early.

He remembers how
she would toss
out the first pancake
and close her eyes

before blowing the seeds
off a dandelion globe.

By nightfall
to another day,

her mercy wheel has disappeared,
and murderous mistakes
made with a pencil
don’t add up.