2009 October:

2009 September:

2006 November:

I
i don’t miss you.
my walls stayed white.
my eyes stayed blue.
that disordering of senses
promised for so long
is undelivered.
nothing is breathing
except a taut beauty
where the sheets are drying.

II
there is no heart.
lifted like swimming
i am more weightless
than one hundred small fish.
but i am out of water
and i am going bad.
there is no heart
in an ocean.

III
my eyes are open, naturally.
if i could sleep
i would dream of white crows
pecking my ego down to size.
instead, my eyes
cannot even close to blink.
i thought i saw you
looking in the freezer for vodka.

IV
and where did we meet?
the night you lied
and said it was poetry,
and not the way
my lips moved as i read it
that you liked.
but you admitted it later,
it was my lips all the time.

V
that was a cold september
and you without running water
traded secrets for a shower
i was the writer and you did all the talking
my other asked me if one of the languages
you spoke was "kat".

VI
with an armspan that almost doubled mine,
he speaks of my friendly cruxifixion.
but a man who holds back,
who denies me my piercing
when it is precisely that
which i require,
that man makes me strong
when the blood in my hands
is weak.

VII
i mark the hours like some
mark days.
4am is a holiday.
it is a solstice.
the longest hour of the night.

VIII
i am uncomfortable in my own bed.
i am remembering a breakfast,
our first,
when i was embarassed
to swallow. funny how
that morning’s coffee
still keeps me awake.

IX
you are not a soldier.
you are duty-free.
i read your poetry and
you read mine
and i wondered if we were
fighting the same war.
even when you loan me a book,
i study the bookmark
as a map to your territory.
those scraps are the details
you’ve forgotten
and the cities you’ve seized.

X
i see it coming.
dawn is the most silent
catastrophe around.
but i cannot afford sunlight.
literally. cheap apartments
are surrounded, and mine
is always dark.
my ears slide on sheets
that held our conversation
about how you are not my boyfriend.
and you said "yet,"
not me.

XI
and i think of your mouth.
the funny way
it twists around french words
and how you suck my tongue
like a suicide
in a locked garage
with the engine on.
but my need to breathe
is as eloquent
as any frenchman’s kiss.

XII
such a good lie
to say
"i have no memories"
no still-life snapshots
no motion pictures
of little bites above my knees
and little bruises rising.
i could see them
if i crossed my eyes.
but to remember is to lie
and no perfect memory
can touch me, can leave those marks
with such gorgeous perfection.

XIII
i sing a song
of teatotalers.
drunk only with sleep,
that stranger, that tease,
i tell the joke
that is decaf.
bitter and useless
as old age.

XIV
"a couple of kids"
you called us, as if
we meet each day to skip rope.
as if tetherball was foreplay
and i was your hopscotch virgin.
do you remember growing up?
i remember pretending to.

XV
1pm is almost christmas.
i will freeze your vodka
and hang parsley over my door
and we will pretend.
you will come with your full bag
and stir me like pudding.
i have counted the hours and the days
between the birds and the bees
and it is now.

XVI
find me in the doorwat
come time your breaths
in sync with the spaces
between my ribs.
homing pigeon,
come squeeze your notes
into me.
we can ignore the stroke of 2pm
in favour of our own holiday.
you can pretend to forget.
i will loan you a pillow
and later we will sleep
like two bulbs that
must be switched off,
occasionally.