I long for her eyes,

Kindling of my unkempt existence

You rained wounded poppies

To last the eternity of a caress

But the moist nets of desire

Encapsulated my bony diadems

Padlocked souls, destined pallor,

Sleepy aroma of kisses that

Encircled shadowy trains asleep

In underpasses acquainted to my heart,

Undressing mirrors envying ashen windows,

Where death lurks as if a switchman

And oblivion in stubs of aged voyages

 

Let me imagine the earth

Before it germinated roots

With drowned swimmer arms

Us before we were entwined

Bliss before it bore you,

Daughter of hope,

Conductor of autumnal violas

Switchboard operator for spring’s wakeup call

Here I love you between

Abrupt bursts of ivy and fiery graveyards

 

Love is brawling lightning

Dissolving into a drop of transparent honey

Thorny stars unleashing insomnia’s fragrance

I and you converging into we,

Half bloody, half empty, half dead

 

Remember, Magdalene

The day consumed her in entirety

With its pincers of haste,

Numbered and ticketed her 227th

Names as if butterflies fleeing chrysalises of beds,

Once, errant pupae of condoms weaned on conscience

Death pacing in telephone coils, windowpanes, wombs

And birth in those same hushed objects

 

Acrobat of matches upon the

Chaotic trapeze as if a pendulum lurching toward

Balconies of sorrows and their dove overcoats

Tightropes of headstones and tresses

I, a scarecrow decommissioned by twilight

In the sea of sirens and cherubs,

Armrests subdued by limelight

Bosom of bullets, sheepish grin

In my palm Mary’s orange rind

Traversing a sky of inkwells, Christmas lights

Milk cartons, felt storks, Zyklon pendants

 

Tell me it’s blue and starry and nude:

Her voice and your womb

Tell me it’s grotesque outside

But deep inside it must be beautiful

Like a set of eyes or an octet of pawns

A dozen sextants or a vastness of elm

Or a solitary serendipity in brothels of needles

Or my sister filling another tulip

And perhaps our silhouettes in silkscreens

Among the vagueness of July 28

Potting the dollar store’s roses

In jars brimming with inaccessible crumbs

Of time on her platter along

With peace and war and oceans of cherries

And the fish of hope