Another goodbye, written to her, directed at myself. Let's see if it works this time.
Sky
Any place under the stars
white dots kissing black satin sky
stained with effervescent city lights,
so distant, taunting us with near dreams
casting June softness over our veering souls.
Come apart with me, like lips on Valentine’s
dancing across the grassy fields like we
were sixteen and didn’t have to
pretend we didn’t know the world’s
clenched fists could fall any second and war
wasn’t lifeblood in this
sickly state of want.
Tonight let no one stay etherized!
Let there be no stillness permitted, though
I beg my heart to be still and not shake you
with its palpitations and the aftershocks of your kisses.
Let the satin sky above become sheets and cotton
unfold in favor of skin so we may part lips like
Valentine’s and sample whatever salty goodness
lays beneath. Lay proud as peacocks,
feather plumes in the air as your toes caress me –
I have yet to return the favor.
Do not dream of this, just move, move, MOVE
like roman candles exploding
back when the Fourth of July
meant something – tomorrow I’ll be Sisyphus
but tonight I’m Merce Cunningham and I
will speak from my body
words that you always heard
but never said.
My lips worked better
when they didn’t talk.
Too tight, too tightly, I squeezed,
my embrace, not cunning, not graceful –
I reached for the sky but forgot
to push the ground away –
a beginner’s releve, a beginner’s mistake.
My moat of muddy jealousies
eroded the fortress walls
I built around my bed,
trying to keep you close.
I hoped you would
stay a few more hours rather than leaping
over the barbed wire wrapped around my bedposts.
My own fear, sharp and poisonous, strung tight
around insecurities.
I was keeping you in, and like any wild brilliance
you broke bars and
like a Howl shattering poetry –
my heart, left palpitations quivering,
oh, wild brilliance – a final kiss, a split second and dry,
on a bridge suspended above a creek,
shaking beneath the sky.
1/27/05
Sky
Any place under the stars
white dots kissing black satin sky
stained with effervescent city lights,
so distant, taunting us with near dreams
casting June softness over our veering souls.
Come apart with me, like lips on Valentine’s
dancing across the grassy fields like we
were sixteen and didn’t have to
pretend we didn’t know the world’s
clenched fists could fall any second and war
wasn’t lifeblood in this
sickly state of want.
Tonight let no one stay etherized!
Let there be no stillness permitted, though
I beg my heart to be still and not shake you
with its palpitations and the aftershocks of your kisses.
Let the satin sky above become sheets and cotton
unfold in favor of skin so we may part lips like
Valentine’s and sample whatever salty goodness
lays beneath. Lay proud as peacocks,
feather plumes in the air as your toes caress me –
I have yet to return the favor.
Do not dream of this, just move, move, MOVE
like roman candles exploding
back when the Fourth of July
meant something – tomorrow I’ll be Sisyphus
but tonight I’m Merce Cunningham and I
will speak from my body
words that you always heard
but never said.
My lips worked better
when they didn’t talk.
Too tight, too tightly, I squeezed,
my embrace, not cunning, not graceful –
I reached for the sky but forgot
to push the ground away –
a beginner’s releve, a beginner’s mistake.
My moat of muddy jealousies
eroded the fortress walls
I built around my bed,
trying to keep you close.
I hoped you would
stay a few more hours rather than leaping
over the barbed wire wrapped around my bedposts.
My own fear, sharp and poisonous, strung tight
around insecurities.
I was keeping you in, and like any wild brilliance
you broke bars and
like a Howl shattering poetry –
my heart, left palpitations quivering,
oh, wild brilliance – a final kiss, a split second and dry,
on a bridge suspended above a creek,
shaking beneath the sky.
1/27/05
