Untitled, Sept 25, 2012.

i.

Look at these two circles,
one inscribed inside the other.

This first circle is your life.
The second circle is also your life.

I don’t know why there are two
circles instead of one:

maybe one is the measure of your heart
and the other the measure of your body.

maybe instead it’s like breathing:
this is you living with lungs full
this is you deflated

you in 2011 exaltant
you in 2012 disappointed.

ii.

Call your family with love:
you could have died on the interstate
twice in the past two months, if we’re being charitable.

you have articulated the limits of your body
and extrapolated from them the infinity
of your heart.

You may choose a circle and erase it.

Consider this bird

i.

I will tap on the hollow of your cheek:

--‘don’t you suffer, sometimes?

--’come to bed, won’t you?’

it’s hard to say if I feel one way or another about it.

these people
are something though, aren’t they?

the sky suddenly turning up gray
but always with houses to undress in, to dry off.

when we talk, no matter what, it’s as if
we talk about birds.

ii.

no sleep handshakes give us away.
practically gleaming at sunsoaked passersby
practically falling asleep in motion, sharklike--

look at you, yawning, hand over mouth

at us in delirium resplendent

iii.

there is a bird alight on slender branch, precarious.
this bird recognizes its own weight and feels the wind.

sometimes you are the bird and sometimes I am.
sometimes only the sound of flapping wings
and all the papers blow off your desk onto the floor.

sometimes we are all the bird, and I think this
might be best.

iv.

there is a rainstorm, so why am I still reading to you?
there is a robbery, and I’m still handing out money
I don’t have.

consider a life spent in between cities  
in gas station parking lots with nothing
but steam and grackles rising off of the asphalt

consider a life spent with the coin
always landing heads up--wonderful
til it’s terrible, but god aren’t we lucky?

v.

when the bird sees you naked it recognizes you,
when I see you naked I kiss the length of your
spine.

vi.

now, close your eyes.
I will trace shapes across the surface
of a bowl of water:

tell me what you’re seeing


vii.

--what if we had ended up killing that baby bird
we took up onto the porch?

--we did the right thing. it was raining so
hard that night.

viii.

don't you feel gorgeous when you’re
this tired?

consider the bird riding the updraft
over the sea: how many miles she
has travelled, how many more
to the ocean’s bottom.


what of longevity, then?
these bodies in bed, warm together
and kept from death so far.

isn’t it enough?

Want

I.

of course nobody believes what you’re saying when you’re saying I don’t
want anything. of course there’s nothing more exasperating than honesty.
if you lay your heart out on the table it looks just like any other object
in a still life, except worse because you didn’t choose it, this heart, so the
interpreters have nothing to work with and leave the building disappointed.

II.

maybe I just wanted more from you than can’t we stand outside for a second?  
or this is our last blue moon until we’re 25, so shouldn’t it seem bluer? I’ll admit
to being one of those interpreters; to clearing out the furniture and rooting across
the hardwood floors for anything I can work with. but be honest: show me again
how little vacant space exists inside your body and then tell me you know exactly
how to fill it up. tell me there’s always been enough blood running through your
heart. I might not believe you, but at least I’ll try to keep my hands to myself.

III.

these long showers, itemized lists of my component parts, things I understand.
this was our stop. this was where we got off and maybe I just wanted more than
you’re sweet or I love you and I can’t have anything to do with you. a little more
than a peck on the cheek as I passed out the door but I never took it too hard.
I was 21 years old and when you’re 21 stopping never means you’re done
getting off. not before the day someone says I don’t want anything and moves
their body down the street, not til the first one follows through, you can’t believe it.

IV.
so I could never imagine a tautegorical heart or help enjoying a set of fingers
collaborating to piece me together. so I itch for a surface complementary to
that of my skin. you are walking into the room and you are demonstrating your  
self-sufficiency and I am envious, wanting to feel like that, with so little empty
space inside: a hermetic seal over the back of your throat, the ability to kiss
without letting someone else’s words creep into your mouth. a knot so dense
it becomes a thing or a thing so whole it becomes real: of course I wanted that,
but instead I just kept saying I want you--I want you--I want everything until
the lights turned out and nobody knew what to say because there’s nothing
to work with there. because once you go into a building alone it only has
an exit, because you can see our stop from here. I will do my best not to be
disappointed when you decide it’s best not to see what comes after that.