I know I haven’t met you,
per se,
but I dreamt about you
last night.

You had on that dress
that I’ve imagined you
might wear,
and your eyes

did that thing
I’ve so often pictured them doing
when you laugh too hard
to breathe.

I hope you don’t mind
my saying,
but you were stunning,
like electricity.

And when I woke up,
the sky was pink, and thick
like honey. The coldest running
water couldn’t quench my thirst.

The only thing new
under the sun
is the fleeting hope
that things can be
different. And even that
gets old real quick.

A new day is only new
until you wake up.
A new year is only new
until the next—and
then what?
Old years pile up
underneath you
till you have to duck

so you don’t hit your head
on the setting sun.

why aren’t self realizations
like waking from a calming dream?

one where the surf was
gently washing over your feet
as you sat, legs writhing back
and forth,
over a beach of smooth round rocks:
silver, and black, and powder blue.

one where a gull called out
in a language you knew you’d never heard,
yet for some reason,
you understood it,
like faith in God, or love.

one where your eyes parted gently
and brought the white of your ceiling
rolling back into place,
cutting off the sharp blue of the sky,
the salty breeze of the sea,
and the sweet sting of her hair,
like tiny whips
against your cheek.

you only realize the need for change
once the sea bed has dried up,
once the gulls no longer drift
in a breeze that used to carry
bitter spindrifts,
and wild tendrils of coarse, brown hair.

and when you look to the sky,
you wonder
why you didn’t see it coming.
the thing you were
expecting, the thing
you were absolutely dreading,
the thing that
rolled in with the autumn
wind—a wind you used to
love, cherish; used to hold in
your breast till it hurt.

suddenly the nearby trill of
birds sounds more like
a battle cry, and the
drip, drip, drip of Chinese
Water Torture slaps
against a thin, green leaf,
and just as suddenly:
everything is still.
only then do you
see it again, but now it’s
not just coming, it’s here,
giant and inevitable.

and the trilling that you never
before noticed—that now
feral call—fades back in,
and the Chinese Water
Torture’s tapping has moved
to your skull and is
everywhere; that thing that
wasn’t quite there yet
is now everywhere. it stares
at you from the corner
of every room you step through
like some large black dog,
some beast in heat, growling.
you don’t look.

at night the dog sleeps
at the foot of your bed.
and when you finally close
your eyes, the tapping of
sharp, heeled shoes—like the
drip, drip, dripping of Chinese
Water Torture, beautiful,
like a last word—draws near.

and the black dog growls.
bares its teeth from the
foot of your bed.

The head hung in the tree. The body lay by the tracks.
The head called to the body. The body to the head.
They missed each other. The missing grew large between them,
Until it pulled the heart right out of the body, until
The drawn heart flew toward the head, flew as a bird flies
Back to its cage and the familiar perch from which it trills.
(-Brigit Pegeen Kelly, [excerpt from] Song)

fly
back to
me

I want to go
somewhere with you.
But not to
any of the places
others
long to go.
Not to countries
of ice, nor cities
where
buildings rake
the undersides
of passing clouds.
Not to a land
where the language
and folktales
could
sing us into
states of
sanguine intoxication,
nor to a place so silent
the pounding of your
heartbeat
in the night
could fill the sky
like lightning.
I don’t want
to go somewhere
warm;
I don’t want
to go somewhere
new;
I don’t want
to go somewhere
far—yet I ache
for the
distance.
I ache to be
someplace
where no flash
of light has ever
flowered
nor hint of laughter
ever sparkled.
I ache to tangle
in your hair,
and rummage
through your breath.
I ache to stare into
a void.
To line my toes
along
the
edge,
and wait
for your push, or
your pull
to send me
into oblivion.

and you get choked up,
like you’re struggling to breathe,
like your trachea has suddenly become

a one way avenue

with a construction detour—
the stale air in your lungs
can only escape now;

can only force its way through

your chest in labored bursts—
and when your fists find their way
to your skull you think,

“if only I could shake the thought away”

but the harder you try the harder it
latches; sticking to your brain like gum
to the bottom of a shoe—sticky pink gum

mashed deep into the treads

of your rubber soles,
deep into the treads
of your dingy soul—

…and the flood comes,

but it ain’t 40 days
and 40 fuckin’ nights,
it’s a life time of

fear of what might happen;

fear of the weeks that lie ahead;
fear of the way your breath quickens
as if preparing to cease;

fear of the nightmares

in which a 13-foot man
stands on a corner,
with a sign that reads:

“the end is nigh.”

we headed home—
hair stiff
from the sea,
skin scorched
from the sun,
        like the charred
        remains of that heap of metal
        and rubber we saw on the side
        of the parkway—
I realized we
were driving
headlong
into all of the spiders
and the secrets
that we had left
     up
        north

what felt best,
aside from your warm fingers
drumming
on the back of my
neck, was the
thought that maybe
it didn’t
have to be this way
forever,
that maybe
        one day,
it would get easier

maybe one day,
I wouldn’t have
to stop,

after dropping you
off, to pick up
a bag of hope,
and a container of
fresh berries

The day will come
when you won’t need me anymore.

You’ll stop calling,
and not long after,
you’ll realize: clouds
still pass,

and the sand still
bubbles when the tide
drags itself out. Perhaps

the wind will
smell just a little bit
sweeter, and the moon
might look just a little bit

closer; but the night will
come when you’ll look
up at the violet glitter,

and wonder if, somewhere,
far from you,
I’m staring up at that same,
immense ocean-spray of light.

Your heart will beat,
your lungs expand,
and when your eyes open

wide, you’ll hope
that was just a star
you just saw,
falling from the sky.

Let me know
Let me know
Let me go
Let me go
Let me have him
Let me have him
How I love him
How I love him
-Stevie Smith

It was early one morning,
just before five. We were
lying in bed, thinking about

talking to each other;
wondering what would come
next, before we even thought

about where or how
to begin. That night you
dreamt that you were floating,

face down, on the lake
at sunrise. “I could feel
the morning tapping me on

my shoulder” you’d tell me
later that day, “but the
bottom of the lake was

so green, and the water
hummed metallic in my ears.”
That morning, we realized,

the sun was going to rise
whether we wanted it to
                                  or not