love poem

you prick the underside of a cranberry bog
and it drains into space.
if the plastic island in the pacific
were actually an island
i would live there
with you. constantly i think
about your collarbone.
the way it curves into a glen
where bees go to die.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we could spend our lives

trying to meditate the world
into something better
and it would still be the world.

you shaved my head
in the shower’s fungal light

we watched the tuberculotic
stream of water running
through the drain, into pipes
and out onto tilled fields,
canyons cleft into soil,
ancient chemicals swirling
in the gulf, carried
to the arctic, breaching
into history and falling
as rain in the parking lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oceanwater spills over highway,
mascara wanding an eyelash.
in salt marshes loblolly pines
are rending into driftwood. summer,
when you called me from the psych ward
i couldn’t find my voice
until yesterday. i imagined you loitering
by the nurses’ station,
patients playing cards
by an open window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you heard the northern lights were moving south
so we waited for them
in a locked room.
i’d been carrying around rocks
to remind myself that i was still alive
so i was holding a chunk of granite
ribbed through with feldspars.
the power had been cutting out
all week, heat like steam
rising from a mouth.
you were telling me about how, in ezekiel,
the angel’s hands are covered in eyes
when the venetian blinds began
to splinter with light. the rock was vibrating
like a burner phone.