THE MEADOWS

The slow tension of your step I know

so well, now this absence in air, a tunnel

whose trebled whistle I fall inside

into rivers of lavender burning through

our days as we lie in the meadows, kissing.

God’s feints bruise the rising moon

and come for me as you leave, my cheeks

lonesome and saline now that it’s clear

the sun only eats so much darkness;

darkness, sick of itself, a mendicant

praying for light—I alone enter the cave

of your mouth, I alone coddle

its alien tongue with mine.

AFTER

I held you under open heat 

by a river that warmed and curved
in the distance, sloshed beneath trains 

in that strange society. Our dawns tapered, 

turning gelatinous within the deep grammar 

of love. I peppered these quiet words for you, across 

the marmalade dusk, and now you stand in a field within 

my solitude. There is a God moving her dark hand in water over the straits 

where whales go to calve. In shallows they find muster for the new babe.  

The grass glitters, daisies quiver in their windy groove as you begin

to remember our time: I couldn’t gather you up, knowing 

your nose, your tongue might find another, snug 

in the air coiling our concrete past, that now cracks 

around the waists of women you think you 

finally learnt how to love. Think of me 

as a hand in the pines, from a purer 

time, as error and ghost still coring 

your chest: stubborn, 

unmoving.

ZONE

Tornado, in the corner

of the car I held you, held

the unconsoled

chin, as my own. My cool

tongue, here.

Your mouth,

quiet & ear, wet.

—Slide

Segue—

—Zip

How we’re thrown

from love

to love

never touched

the right way.