You and Me

You are part
of what makes my life
complicated.

And by complicated
I mean
that I get
my happiness
from a million sources

seemingly haphazard

but are in truth
strung together
by a fine thread
I catch glimpses of
from time to time

The other night
I thought I saw
the story of my life
as a continuum

I thought it would be
a relief
to understand
where everything fit

the uncompromising
finality
of “It’s good to see you again”
and your familiar embrace
four hours before
the syncopated stories
of a hundred cities
stretched
between our two
hungry
but resilient
bodies
for the fourth time
in four years

Walking Around Towards Greenbelt 3

Every time
a room contains you
it is marked with a sense of you
you are captured
in the art on the walls
and the glow of the lights
hanging from the ceiling

even the view out the window
is skewed
somewhat
superimposed
with your absence

corridors and balustrades
and curving staircases
are branded
by signs
that you’ve been there
like a welcome violation

you vandalize
every cubic foot of space
like an orgasm of the mind
an earthquake
of the senses

you obliterate
afternoonmares
and bad memories
replacing them
with spiced caresses
of your company

even restaurants
I never even saw you in
and you only say
you’ve been
are a host
to that
inexplicable melody

it sings to me
or I could be
going crazy

I walk around
your usual haunts
and an electric polarity
sticks to my skin
and makes the street lamps
flicker

I keep expecting
the strangers
in the street
to figure out my secret
and blurt out
your name
out of the blue

Fine Specimen of a Man

I didn’t come here to cry
I came here to write
but both my pens
are running out of ink
just like many
unplanned things

Why is it
that every time I see you
it always feels like
I cheated the universe
off something
tremendously important
and got away with it?

fine specimen of a man
clothed in bonfires
and purple feathers
with a miraculous understanding
of desire
sewn onto your aura
like a sheriff’s badge

you belong to the world
not to me
or anyone
zip across the stratosphere
like an all-important
prophecy
and cavort in sand
finer than fairy dust
bathe in oceans
more pure
than any of my most
sacred dreams

I consider it
a mathematical impossibility
that you’d come around
and claim
to remember me

What If

They didn’t give us
insulating sleeves
as if they had known
my fingers were numb
from the cold

I wrapped both my hands
on the red paper cup
and savored the warmth
as a part of my resolution
to preserve the moment

you didn’t sit across from me
on the little round table
but beside me
our elbows touching
still it felt like
I couldn’t get you
close enough

we were just
marking time
we couldn’t call it
anything
but we talked about
the first time we met

can you imagine
how things would have been
if you hadn’t come over
and asked for my name
if we hadn’t danced
if I hadn’t given you my number
a four-letter word
and ten digits
and we had just
gone on with our
separate agendas
that night,
this life?

then we wouldn’t be having
this coffee right now
you’d be here
with someone else
and I’d be
spending these minutes
some place different

how strange!

I couldn’t even
begin to see myself
anywhere
but here

Poet at an Impasse

I have
poems
sprouting out
of my ears
seeping out
of the pores
of my skin
Isn’t it funny
how you need
fifty thousand words
to describe four hours?

I told you
many secrets
last night
but I forgot to mention
it took me
375 diary pages
14 poems
and a novel
just to make sense
of the six days
we spent together
that summer
of 2006

do you remember?

Jealous

The truth is
it’s not an easy feat
to walk four blocks
on four-inch stilettos

but I wanted us
to walk anyway
because
I didn’t want
to share you
with the other
bus passengers

Water

You
all of you
the way you think
the words at the tip of your tongue
the tattoo on your left shoulder
and that cologne you wear
that drives me half crazy
all that
and whatever else
sticks of dynamite and hailstorms
and tropical islands
are burrowed in your soul
out of my sight
—are like water.

Once,
when I was younger
I practically drowned
in that water
I didn’t know
how to handle myself in it
that I splashed around
clumsily
made a lot of mess
and got out of it
more dead than alive.

Now it’s so much better.
I’ve greatly improved
in navigating
the terrain of your presence
the landscape of your attention
and I can swim in the water
with only the slightest
presentiment
of danger
and bathe in your conversation
and use every wave of it
to my advantage

and come out of it
dripping with the sweet remnants
of however short
or long
a time
you chose to spend
with me
refreshed
and thankful
for the experience

It’s How You Do

It felt like a weekend
it felt like a holiday
it felt like Christmas
or the first day of summer break

even though it was anything but.

It was enrollment day
a day of deadlines
and responsibilities
and I was running around
like a newly beheaded chicken
not even knowing
if I would make it
if even a thing
would go right

it rained too
and the streets
were splashing mud
and the traffic was murder
and the cab men were imbeciles

but
  you
    only
      had
        to
          be
            there

for the day to soften
into
something
almost
unbearably
nice

You are My Solitude

You are my solitude.
My place at your side
is what I see
in every moment of clarity
granted to me by my loneliness.

You are the unwavering streets
    under my feet
    of the hundred miles
    of my solitary walks
You are the skyline
    of breathless towers
    etched against
    the Wedgewood blue
    of the Heavens
You are every love song
    on the radio
    that plays
    on Sunday nights
You are the cups of coffee
    that keep me company
    when no scrap of conversation
    would do
    to soothe
    the raging chaos
    in my mind

It’s your memory
I run to
for every love I want
    but cannot have
for every relationship
    I get into
    but cannot get to work
    no matter how hard I try

This life is so complicated
but I have simplified it
by my certainty
of your love
    the air that surrounds me
I am never alone

All the Chances It Takes

I’ve been loving you for so long
I suspect I’m going to love you
for the rest of my life

and I think I know
that before the end of this lifetime
we will find each other again
and get back the shot
at a life together
that we passed up long ago

This I can read
in the movement of the stars in the sky
in the direction of the winds that blow
in the way the shadows lie across the ground
This is the secret revealed to me
by my having survived
all those brushes with death
and those illicit love affairs
with disaster
and those broken hearts
It’s what I learn
with every breath:

You and I
given enough time
will transcend everything
until the galaxies
end up with no choice
but to acknowledge
the immeasurable force
that binds us
to each other
and destines us
for all the chances it takes
to get right
the greatest love
the history of time
has ever known