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And Their Forecast

–For Brandi

I can still hear my mother’s defense:
“I did the best I could at the time.”
Which was right, her worth defined

by which fork we used, or the greater necessity
of shining hair, clean skin, the “personal care”
pamphlets I threw away in favor of how

we might be with our bodies: naked, unashamed.

I relied on the past to teach you—the slant
of her arm across your chest, the cool press
of her palm to your forehead when the world

was dizzy with snow and you could barely breathe.
The whistle of the vaporizer was her wisdom, too,
its lukewarm air curled around us like licorice.

Unwittingly, she taught us well how to sicken and heal.

Now I unravel my days with her rituals and habits
as every day your face grows more beautiful, distant.
I have taught you proper manners and speech,

and once in humid summer, the Latin names
of clouds and their forecast. You can still remember
“Mammatus,” pendulous black, boiling across Nebraska.

But what else? What else have I forgotten
in these daily rhythms we raise out of silence?
We all did our best, but what if it wasn’t enough,

was never enough, for any of us?

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The Illusion of Choice

What what would you like to be when you grow up?
Elsewhere.

Say you could have been raised
by wolves—mange-festered, feral,

starving for the last thrash of a rabbit,
the more calculated ambush of a deer.

Or say the opera had adopted you
at birth, the final aria of a dwindling

company gone bankrupt with passion,
your sable coat the only remnant

of their worth. But no, you chose
to be born here, among towns

like Flagler, Bovina, Seibert, Bethune,
places you pass through on your way

to somewhere else, unless you
live here—then you stay,

thinking the name on the water tower
means you, or that oil mixed with rain

in a hubcap is beautiful, which it is
because you own it, or think you do,

in your hand-me-down jacket
and the galoshes you wear

for cowboy boots, galloping along
past Hedgecoke’s Grocery, Eunice’s Cafe,

on your way to face some stranger.

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Dinner at the Manifest Restaurant

I don’t love you enough to tell you

that this vague sickness passing through
the table into the breaded veal and potatoes
is proximity
made unbearable by the distraction
of wine, convex and bleeding
over the lip of the goblet.

Nor do I love you enough

to tell you that I refuse to accept this
steady disintegration of a Sunday—
when the week has slid downhill
on all fours, and you wait for the light
to drop with some grace
behind the ridge, wait, backlit,
looking out on what has ultimately become
the cruelty of your life: this cul-de-sac
with its ledge of forced narcissus,
and before you, your hands
puckered by the slick and tepid water.

I want to tell you I don’t love you

enough to admit the identity of this cuisine,
these thin-sleeved afternoons that can slip into frost
just as everyone has traded their coats for amazement,
and even the goldfinches are taken in enough to expect
fresh berries with the thaw. Yet here we sit, party
to the same old digressions: pleasure and sweat,
flesh that loves itself, regardless.

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Aubade

This is how we want it to end: a meteor headed straight for us. A period
larger than all the love poems left in me. Like dawn, we sing, certain—

This is how we will be remembered: your name in suspended animation.
Your name an ember headed home. Have we not prayed to be extinguished

among the dry fields, to be lifted to a heaven we cannot hurt?
The end approaches, decisive like a wound we think we deserve.

O, how we live like a wildfire. How we wish to be rain
instead. The Sun swallows all our wrongs only to spit them out,

and perhaps forgiveness isn’t a pair of wings, but the flame
that sears them away. This time, we do not need

a lifetime to reach the heaven we make for ourselves. This time,
the fire embraces all creation and the Lord watches

as we pretend to be His angels—our six wings of mud miraculous
and wrong, our lips empty as divinity—and I’m saying it’s okay.

That the world burns even without our breathing.
Emptiness moves so slowly we mistake it for forever. I’m saying

I’m not sorry for making the world end, but won’t you come
and hold me anyway?

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They Asked, Do You Love Her to Death?

I said, speak of her over my grave and watch
how she brings me back to life. I said

                              what a dream it is, to build a forever
                              out of ruin

scattered at our feet,
like falling hair, shorn by gunfire.

                              But why can’t falling also mean flight?
                              Who could ever say the beloved earth

is our prison?
Instead, dance with me, star-leaping boy,

                              woman who is more than a mother,
                              a wife, woman who is more

than just a woman, I love you in all your wrongness,
woman-boy, lover-boy,

                              brown-eyed baby love singing your way
                              through a hurricane. Let me elevate you

past the atmosphere, past the dandelions,
into love, into morning. I swear,

                              our devotion was always meant to outlive us.

I taste earth-sweat through wood-smoke
and I’m ready to crawl home to heaven, to honey

                              to baby, darling,
                              look. Look how happy we are to be no-one and still

here. I promise we’re still here. Hope can wait–
winged sandals tanning at our doorstep.

                              All things soft and beautiful and bright are held here,
                              right here, in my finger

tracing your collarbone. What a blessing it is
to say again the name you never wanted,

                              to hold your name to the light, red light,
                              until it sings. Singed blossom red.

Lily-like blood, lady-like blues convincing pain it is music.
Magic doesn’t need to be real.

                              This body is enough, I swear.

Let me craft a world big enough for your potted plants.
Let me build a word we’ll recognize

                              in any universe, a red petal buried
                              between plates of shifting earth, here—

Coffee-ground,
you were the end of a long dream, a buoy found

                              half-underwater, still floating.
                              Green surrounding the coastline.

Green beautiful the way dawn beckons
more of itself. More green. More love.

                              There’s always room for more love. Green-stained
                              dawn-singing-boy sewing a blanket,

dear running-bird turning the tunnel
to volcano-earth,

                              blanket-coated dawn, worn dawn-blanket,
                              stay a little while longer.

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Have You Prepared for Your Death?

              after Bhanu Kapil

Snowdrop. Sandstorm. Rain,
               fall. Sun, shine a little
longer. Goodness, leave me
               a little later. Tell me,
what should I say
               when English
always leads to begging?
               When even the rain pleads
goodness, please stay.
               Stay a little longer
past curfew. This is a refusal
               to say goodbye, goodbye,
to today,
               and this is all we know, Lord,
but I don’t want
               to admit it,
goodness,
               please stay, I turn to you
when I have no one else
               to blame. You, slow dancing
with the sound
               of lightning.
You, slow dancing with nothing,
               you, you, you, I still hear you
in the maple’s
               leaving. In the guitar’s breaking.
I hear you as lightning
               strikes and it’s morning again.
Yes, I hear you. I, here, with you
               again. Like lightning. Like snow.
I, hare, struck
               with being your tomorrow.
Lord, take me
               back. If you can
hear me now,
               let forever be found
in our falling. Let the stormcloud
               never become
groundwater.
               Bless the unworthy
just this once,
               and let this flight last
a little longer.
               Goodness,
good lord,
               I’m not ready.

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Cuneiform

Again, I take your name into my mouth, the syllables disintegrating
               into something like sweetness.
               See? Water into wine. Again,
I take your name into my mouth and swallow.

Because I wanted
               my arms around you.

               Because saying I loved you as a man
instead of a boy
               might make us more real.

Because every love song is an elegy
               for itself, and we have learned to speak
               the way thirst does—our mouths filling with longing
                                                                                        to forget
                                                                                        our bodies.

The body dreaming of bursting
                                             into flames. Gold spilling
                                                            out of the award-winning man on fire.

It shouldn’t have been this hard to be holy,
               and we know the flesh around the tailbone
               was how we learnt to lie.

Turn off the light and see what blankets us.
               Turn on the light and see how we hold onto all that black.

               Outside—the sky as both dawn and dusk. Clouds
cover and uncover the Sun.

               Outside a lit match, flickering. As if constantly waking
from a nightmare.
               Darkness surrounding the blinking eye.

Tell me this: a match is always a match, even as it burns out
               for good—but is it enough
               to be nothing but the shape of our bodies?
Is it enough to be within and without?

Maybe we call it longing because we define ourselves through
               distance.

I’m half the world away. I’m at the edge
               of this parsec tearing holes in nebulas
knowing you’ll meet my eyes
               when we’re dead. I’m right next to you,
finding every way to leave
                                               the world between us.

My body behind yours,
your neck drenched with late afternoon,

I reach for you and pull away all at once.
                                   My arms forever
                                   at your shoulders,
                                                                      wanting.

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Study of Daylight

The title is a lie—this poem is about daylight the way the page is
prostration to an unnamed god I never asked for water but thirst
walks in my stead bends these bones toward the desert where madmen
drink of longing and become famous for it              among them I see
Majnoon patron saint of ripped collars called lover called devotee
called insane by history he does not bend down to drink or pray

unlike the rest              he drinks standing and sleeps standing
his gold-plated longing adorns his shadow he who has lost his name
bows only to a beloved relieved to wake each morning a bleeding throat
and split calluses              he is the luckiest of us all              we who wander
for want of nothing envy the blood              red ants who utter no god’s name
rewarded with dust              twisting scripture to firewood for love named

after what is true and impossible               at daybreak I praise God
in a language I do not know except to praise with am I still a sinner
if I can only speak of forgiveness               to what drowns me
is a love unmoored enough to anchor my feet to               this bridge
of daylight upon daylight pinned by faith I pore through the translations
asking if faith is only for the willing               I check the back of my neck

and feel for God’s hundredth name with which the faithful may use to
guarantee an answer from beyond the veil and beyond the veil is a face
like mine a face not mine asks for forgiveness               the sky splits open
birds leap in fear of the trumpets               divinity boils away the water
                                          of the body
to make way                                                         for the sunrise and nothing else

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Game Over

“A moon will rise out of my darkness” – Mahmoud Darwish

new moon blood moon moon with the ghastly face moon I took for granted moon that kisses the sea little moon that dilates pupils to madness I worship whatever claims to make me sane I worship sun & sky I kiss the dirt & run from bugs I respect the spider living in the window I ask what have I done to deserve this I ask what have I done to deserve this I ask what have I done to deserve there is blood in places I could have never imagined wrists rimmed with time back of palms tattooed with wisdom courage power dust moon there has always been that possibility of madness when we encounter our shadow selves every once in a cycle reflective pools reveal our dance I could die today & live again I could die today & live again I could die today & live again I could die today & live

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Interlude: Parallel Playing w/U

for jess

forgive me. i am forgetting that which is good / in service / of narrative. /                in the needle aisle of a craft store i confess               i am afraid of getting close to someone again. lines crease the corner of my eyes / phantom laughter / relics of the voices i will not hear again, unless               / the worlds are small. / each made up of archetypes / repeated across titles&endcards / but not within /               in this lifetime there is a princess & a hero / no more / no less / in the next there will be too, / unless               / consider: the end of the map / where the rock walls blur / & the abyss endless / costing ¼ heart with each fall. / again, again, i try / i want to know what lies at the bottom /               consider, the abyss: a reset point. / selves that always return / to the ledge               how lonely it can be / to be a certain type of character. singular purpose. looped dialogue.               how lucky am i to find someone / who slots into the same role / a friendship can be found / in serendipity / of reading the same story at the same time / without the other knowing / found in sitting side-by-side / i play on the tv & you play handheld & the humm of our systems are complementary / the gentlest of silences / habit / found in               i watch a show & you will exist next to me / until, we wait for the next season, together /& the gentlest of silences filled by shared guilt / we talk of the unmeasurable weight / of wanting to do good / twinned in our overwhelm / of how to serve / well / of how to be kind, & disbelief / in those who won’t do the same / we can practice   here               / & consider, the space between two couch cushions: the smallest of worlds / teach me your obsessions for when i miss you most / & i will help you fight monsters in the depths / pray i look cool / even if i fuck up / tell me tell me tell me / about your progress / in that other game / & i promise i won’t ruin the rest / consider: the sequel grants us who gravitate towards the edge / second chance / a curious reward / another kingdom / to touch / instead of       / please tell me & tell me               & tell me                   / we’ll never get tired of this

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