Splendor

Early morning, with a girl whose red lips,
black hair and pale skin eat up all the moonlight

so that everyone around her is bankrupt and without.

His house, far from everywhere,
surrounded by the long stalks of trees, spectacular

in the way they live beyond us. The rain
develops like steam from a floor of dead leaves and dirt.

All three of us leaving the car, and me wanting to go home
to think of the boy who is not here, to think of how far

far can be. It is the distance between frequencies,
the spaces within memory. This grit of skin,

that half moon of nail where I miss you, the air
black and palpable, the gaps between trees at night.

We pour and empty into the memorized dark
climbing in between legs and teeth,

to find the succor in this before it becomes
time to sign off.

The L

You are most everything
when you do not speak,

still-born smile, you.
Inside there is a light–

behind it, the silhouette of trees
past the glow of streetlamps

not brave enough but reticent
where words cannot reach,

all laughter mere afterthought.
Inside there are many things

but only one you.
Silent and golden, cut by winter

into a new creature.
Here on the elevated train

the city drops and falls beneath us.
We see into homes lit, couples

making dinner, the maleness
of a white t-shirt, windows steaming–

Some things will be still,
unmoving and minute, like you

living in this room I've created
full of lost things and unidentified stars.

Portrait of a Young Wife

Some things maybe
do not seek cover,
a spool staring dumbly
inchoate and daft–
resting rather in open spaces
like your smile or the small
of your back. This meadow
has been lacking water
for months now. Building
happiness from thread, slowly
your fingers learn how to
loop, bring over, ferry under.
To save is to carry and let
no one know your burden.
Crafted into one of your sullen
glances, you will be best
enjoyed barefoot, your sloppy
beauty costing forty ingots
of blood, wooden silences,
a California King, Gerber daisies.
You do not want to go like this–