Polyamorous (3)
1./ There was a fried shimmer
to that August morning.
The pink sun cut through his bliss,
blinds laying shadow across our tangle.
We moved through the flaxen bloom
of September afternoons
like petals, unfurling
across my forehead and cheeks
in beads of sweat. Climbing mountains,
our packs full of sweet apples we’d gnaw
then pitch spinning into the woods.
We sleep in the same language.
––
2./ To say that I miss is to say that
her hands are like warm water,
cupped, reflecting a neon flash of sky
that marks the wind’s brief opening
in a thick canopy of trees.
Hands that write me letters in New Orleans,
take cloudy images of hot baths, and fevered
wet limbs in darkness soft with steam.
She likes to send me love songs.
She is driving west towards me.
––
3./ When I think of you
I think of rear view mirrors
and that day we walked together
down rows of pearled onion heads.
They slept like infants in damp black dirt,
not ready to be born. We left empty handed.
––
4./ I am lucky to have people in my life
with this power to break my heart.
say a river
To say that a stone is
fixed,
say a river,
is folly. I have been given the gift
of dreams.
They are a dark lapping
crusted white salt along skin,
small havens, warm
dim, where nothing hurts.
I wake and trees shadow on the floor.
I did not ask them too.
Long tree shadows shake on the floor
and there is nothing I can do
about the sun hung low and slanting
My face is illuminated
these days
it is a gift
this fading season
this moving water
I have been given
say, a river.
My body curves to embrace large stones,
lozenges impermanent,
Say there is nothing:
nothing fixed.
No caress is fixed.
Dark water laps the salt on my skin.
Dark tree shadows shimmer the floor.
The sun quits the sky
I have been given,
say, a river.