E

Open wide
I think I'm unsteady.
Every once in a while
I'll tell the truth through my eyes.
Broken down and
backwards turning.
Why don't you
catch me?

He broke passage through the crowd
thought I'd see his face again.
Wasn't so late
and not so early.
For a moment I lost your hand
and I couldn't tell you
tonight the dead walk
yeah tonight I thought I saw his face again.

Broken hammers fall
& I was listening.
The beat stops
yeah the beat stops for
Our Father who art
Our Father who art
nowhere.

Split second ends
& time restarts again.
I'll turn to see your face
you won't know a thing.
Maybe the week gone
or maybe the week long tale
of our humanitarian
disgrace.

Fill this hole with
coriander
dirt & soil
ashes & dust.
A warm hand in my pocket
floating forever.
Wouldn't that be nice
wouldn't that be
nice.

i.
I'm jealous of
him because of
her, and
I wonder why I can't
have that, even when
I know that
I do.

ii.
I'm scared of
pushing you because
I just want---

I want...

I'm anonymous,
yet I'm still
hiding.

iii.
I want more-- no,
I crave
more; it
was soft and
I miss the feeling of
so much

gentle.

iv.
I love the
feeling of
telling them that
they're beautiful- like-
Artwork.
Moonlight.
Child-women.

v.
If they only knew
how lovely they are.

Please.
Don't go.

I can't follow,
much as I'd like to;
I have to stay.

Please don't leave me alone with a hole
where our beginnings used to sit,
vague recollections easily recalled.

Without you there,
my ability to ease a little missing,
fill in a corner of your gap between weekends,
is gone.

I know this is selfish:

Don't go.
Please.

We're so far inside each other,
but you still surprise me:
wetness on my cheek made me
pull back and look into your face.

I promise that year,
two years,
won't see a diversion,
a change of plans('least when it comes
to us).

& I promise:
the verity of what I said
(about this being bigger),
will never change.

I play distantly
upon your eyelids as you sleep
& if I listen
I can hear these words I won't speak:
The ones saying when I
go away,
I won't have
these stick figures on my stomach,
telling me
you love me.
I won't have this word either,
scratched in black
block-letters onto my arm as
a reminder
of where this phrase is headed:

Much as I'd like to,
I can't live week to week, counting only as far as
when do I get to see you next?

Closing my eyes,
the world opens up.
It's a world where
everything is right.
(You know what I mean)
& this buzzing in my ears
from the
dense
dense
silence
of my room
doesn't exist.

& so everything worked out
& next to my violin sleeps your cello
& next to my head sleeps your head
& on either side of those letters
nothing seems as long or hard as it did before
when now I play silently upon your eyelids;
you're sleeping next to me.

I.
I like hands;
their ability to grasp,
build, form, create.
They are machines
built with delicacy
and strength.
They represent so much about
what separates us
from other species--
their power.
We take for granted these
necessary tools,
practicing in grace and beauty,
commanding attention with their
expressive nature.
And yet,
one tiny movement and
their destructive
abilities are released.

II.
I like to watch her
wash her hands;
massaging the soap in,
erasing any last traces of
chemicals or
germs.
I marvel at the
lack of discomfort she
seems to find in
never removing her ring
to do the dishes.
The ring that confuses
so many people and only makes
me laugh as they argue a
point they know nothing of,
with that ring as their
only proof.

III.
Drawing my right hand,
I build an idea out
of a few curved fingers
and a gentle reaching;
I turn gentle into
desperate and wait
to find the rest,
exploring parts of me I
hadn't yet acknowledged.