εσύ
In the sudden release of
Pinks and orange,
The swell and fall of dusk
That makes the olive trees
soften in their spirals,
I find you, here, though
You’ve never been.
But still, in these Athenian streets,
Every time a bike engine revs,
Pulled through the heat
By worn marble and broken clay,
I’ve said your name.
You’ve never opened
Your eyes into this sweet fog
Of voices unfolding in a language
I can only dream.
But the morning blossoms
Outside my door
Remember your mouth
on my breast, your fingers
touching the places
That swell and fall only to you.
100 Trees
100 trees fell last night
And I’ve been wanting to talk to you
wanting to want less.
It took six days of continual sawing
In and out over rings
And catapillar crawlings to break
100 strong bodies.
I even lit a candle on the
Bathroom floor, knelt
And chanted words like
come, God and hold.
I’ve been cutting wood and bringing water
Cutting wood and bringing water
Until my hands have grown buds
And the only thing I see
in the woods is you.
I read somewhere that
The idea of the fall is more painful
Than the impact of the landing
But at night the ice around the trees
Made the noise of bombs
And every time another hit
I trusted less
100 trees fell last night
And I am still awake
In the echo of you.
Daffodils
I looked up the anatomy of a daffodil
Because the yellow plastic bag
Still stuck in the foliage outside my window
Always makes me think of you.
The stem of a daffodil is held up
By the spathe,
axis to all that color
Inches taller than the soft ground
You bare weight into
As you kneel and count down Spring.
The last bone of a human spine
Is the atlas,
pistil to it’s heavy motor
And a word I try and touch
Fingers to the back of my neck
As if I could turn a world.
The tree across the street
Has now grown plastic leaves
through tiny tears in the bag.
And you tell me
You feel like crying when the daffodils disappear.
On the day when you find them
I will kneel alongside you
And watch as something in us too, dies back.
Knowing in this renewal
nothing is lost but
a store of energy
Impossible yellow
for our next year’s bloom
UNTITLED
You were blonde
The dying kind
I lay my head under your chin
And felt the weight of myself
When I said yes
Because I meant it
And because the smoke
Meant suddenly all the world was you.
Later
with my legs between yours
I touched the back of your neck
Thick with needled color
And you told me that one day
You’d probably
stop.
I said you had a beautiful mind
To protect
And you smiled not because it hadn’t been said before
But because we knew
I wouldn’t be the change.
They say
A girl is a gun
But maybe a girl is only a gun
When you’re holding her
The way I couldn’t hold myself
Chamber empty
Quick metal again my tongue
And that song
You tattooed on your chest
Thick and heavy my ears.
24 hours isn’t a remedy
And shortcomings have a self life
Of only half that time.
But if there is something
good
in me
and worth trusting
in each of us
It is that I still do.