For to See

i wove you a garland of poems before we met
which you cobwebbed like yesterday's mothballs

as if cotton had crawled inside the mouth of god
and died there
and its name was me

of course, your petty sidesteps only served to invoke
in me a greater fervor
a fever matched only by our very memes
and fleeting memories of a night and a day
shared in ecstasy
and spared the longevity of heartache.

i think…

I pour a drink despite
a shaking hand
and head full of brass tacks
and bliss

i kiss my future and she tastes of you
and a mourning of spent cigarettes
and second-hand emotions

I ocean over your body
the sea I see
eyes closed
against this torrent

my head bent in prayer and retrospection
ever since you deigned
to darken my door

lady, shade, scant dream

this seam I preen and prod
a road trod in reverse
like a novel lived back words
plots spiraling inward
to knots and scars and stories
we need bear witness

flit feathers like the birdsong in my mouth
when I touched you in my mind a year
before our fear
came realized
out a gate of our own making

a lust must longing for release
when no port is home
and our stars are the only map to heaven

9.5.13