—EVERYONE I LOVE HAS THE HARDEST TIME SLEEPING

Our Un-sculpted

You can be my Garfunkel

and I’ll be your extra

kidney or spleen. 

I’ll paint your eyelids

such pretty colors

the sun will blush butterscotch

and never stop yodeling. 

It’s easy to synchronize ligaments

when the bees are this

drunk on Frankincense. 

Let’s make a poem out of

hope and yarn,

saliva and parking tickets. 

You can dance on my shoulders

for days or weeks,

even when you’re sweaty and smelly

(I won’t ever mind).

Our breath can teach us

foreign language skills. 

You can be my

Little Red Corvette and

I’ll be your pink heart and

green clover cereal. 

I’ll read the horoscope

below your belly button

and make you giggle Monarchs. 

What do you say? 

Let’s be lovers. 

There’s still time.

—PEOPLE WITHOUT DEMONS MAKE ME A LITTLE SUSPICIOUS

The Journal of Regret, Day 2___

On the other ledge

I hang pink-translucent,

a flaccid drop of

ransomed blood,

my grip greased,

slipping on everything

I used to know. 

You did that.

Yep.

You promised

this wouldn’t happen,

wouldn’t make me

love you so hard, fervent

and targeted.

You said the world was

flat after all,

just you and me in it,

littered with butterflies

and freedom.

But look—I’m flying now,

my flimsy wings are spread

like crumpled foil

desperate for lift off.

I see the soil below,

so clear and ripe from here,

the workman ants,

good soldiers,

laboring like we should have,

tilling, searching and sweating

in the welcome dirt.

And me?

I’m a stupid boy, dropping fast,

waiting for the ground’s kiss,

for the sound of that final

and unforgiving splat.

—TRAVELED BACK IN TIME, NOW I’M LIVING IN A VORTEX

This Morning

This morning

I wanted nothing

more than to stay in bed,

draw myna birds across

your washboard back,

smell your salty neck,

hear the circus

clanging in your hair,

and wish for more hours. 

I wanted to breathe

on each blemish

of your sun-starved skin,

watch them bloom and Samba

across the sheets,

somersault and confess

Two Truths and a Lie. 

I miss those warm-tunnel promises,

oozing sticky and certain

through me like perpetuity.

Oh, all the things

we could have done then

with a simple and honest kiss—

unspool riddles,

make love,

make babies,

cure cancer.

But buried in blankets

I became brick,

unable to move,

picturing it,

you so near and lovely,

your sleepy eyes opening

every groove in me.

So, I thought about it,

and thought about it some more,

until it was time to

get up and finally

tell the vapid air

what I’d always wanted

to say to you--

Good morning, Love.

Can you hear me?

Are you even there?