Like stars that fall from elsewhere

Like stars that fall from elsewhere, leaking light,

do come the things we don’t expect.

But hear: with open arms I greet them all

though knowing burns as armor won’t protect.

My lover waits and stands on grassy hills

across the clouds between the darkened skies.

It's not the earth that blooms before me, no;

what haunts me softly are my lovers eyes.

listen.

How many times have I slept past

the ripening young age that morning reaches

when it stretches its fingers through shades and over sills

before its skin ages from golden and warm

to white and pale, when rooms are stuffy

and cold things are forced to sweat

like an apple, green and cool

before it has opened its red eyes

to drop from its tree.

How many times have I heard the song

that sweet, sweet song-

the one that can kill the heart with its sweetness

I set my head down on my old pillows,

and turned in a familiar bed inside a strange room

pretending not to want to listen

to tell everyone else

to listen.

To listen to morning’s hands

and strange echoes

and the thumping- 

of apples to the earth and of soaking hearts

and to bare feet as they beat on bonfire ground.

How many more times 

will I be in strange rooms

listening hard, with hot ears and a burning voice,

trying to melt my mouth and body of stone?

luminescent stupor

He traipses and thumps on the pavement, soaked 

and swirling himself 

into a sweet, succulent stupor.  I watch 

as the hems of his walls begin to weave 

slowly- 

just around his feet and barely at the tips of his earthy fingernails 

at first.  With the turns he makes, 

the street lamps make flash floods of light

upon the many plates of his figure.

And in a sudden, endearing jump of body and sound,

his voice electrically pierces the hollow clearing.  

It cracks at the peak of his jazz ballad, as it normally would not

as the decibels swell- 

playing wildly with the air, 

climbing higher than his rhythmically swaying arms. 

precious ground

In a sharp-edged kitchen I stand alone with you.

I can never get warm here 

despite the layers 

and my body prickles as my blood flow becomes sharp and slow.

Meanwhile there is a young girl below it all-

cupping fresh pears with her bare hands,

soft and bare and perfectly imperfect.

I want to tell her that she is right;

pears and apples 

and the hourglass that haunts her 

are all beautiful shapes.

She lives there; but for how long?

What will we try to tell her 

that will tear her roots 

out of this intelligent, precious ground?

rivers that run beneath our feet

rivers that run beneath our feet

could you have touched the waters

I’m drinking down, I’m drinking now

tracing ripples that remind me of

the drops of honey I saw in your eyes

that could once illuminate me up and down

up and down

up and down all through me

I want to be the curls in your hair

and swim in your secrets

let’s get washed up

and say one word for every pore

and grain of sand we find on our faces

from lying on beach’s edge

side-ways and night-wise

counting and soaking in the stars

whose blinks reach from so far

we are inside a mirage

build my statue out of wood

to one day burn it down 

but make sure you give me 

one more kiss,

swift as the wind bites your cheek cold

this quietly bursts

we exchanged like books the surfaces of our minds

you’re so far to be so close

how far is this far?

we fit together once 

warm contours of our faces

rested against each other

filling in spaces

as love words passed 

between our barely touching lips

each now, merely echo

when sweetness turns aftertaste

the chapter of deep violet blues

unexplainably damaged joy

that quietly bursts and blooms

that heart

that story 

take it from me

it belongs to you

nearly weightless

a little night-bird’s feather brushed her nose

she looked to the right, and in the flood of the orange streetlamp

she saw him standing near the wall

and the time moved like the fall 

of the nearly weightless leaves in mid-October.