83.

your skin will be washed
a shade of dull blue, and he
will not be able to scrub it off
nor will he be able to paint over it

you will be cloudy some nights
and sunny some nights
and you will be dancing one
moment and crying the next

he will look into your eyes and he
will see nothing living there
and he will love you anyway
but you will not understand why

he will wait for you, for
the cracks of light between your
nose and lips, and he will hold you
when it does not shine through

you will watch his face a thousand
times, searching it for some answer
for which you do not know the question
and you will never find it

you will beg a hundred gods
to move your legs for you when you
cannot, and you will hear
nothing in reply

he will say her name in passing
and it will prick your bones like ice
and he will forget he was ever hers
but you will not

he will touch your skin and call it
warm, and he will kiss your hair
and he will never know
how wrong he is

82.

a little pile of unsaid things scatters
around my feet and I pick them
up -- I make a little house
of them, fashion little chairs and little
bedspreads, fill the walls with
little wall hangings with little words
along the edges (all the little
 secrets I keep inside my
 little head)

and I am sure you see the little
lines along my forehead and you
read the little poems they make
about my little sadness --

I'll bet I look a little like a
listener, when really I am holding little
consonants and little vowels beneath
my tongue, and they are waiting
for the perfect time to peek
their little heads out from
between my little
lips

and all the while you are tracing little
circles with your little nose across
my cheeks, and I feel littler beneath
the bigness of you

(the truth, you
 see, is I have
 only grown a very little
 bit since I was
 little)

81.

swallow them down, pill
by pill until you can think more
clearly, you can speak more
plainly, but you cannot feel colors
very loudly any-
more

be careful with the words you put
in your mouth -- they have
claws that catch
my throat around its middle and
tie my arms in knots

(you are the only one, really,
 who has words
 like that)

and you may look behind you
someday and you may see this
written down on paper white, and
you may remember
the feel of the keys
under your fingertips

if you make it that far down
the gravel path

Maps

from the roads I take to find you
to the afternoon we spent
on the living room floor: the first
mark I made on the map
of the places that mean
something, that lead
somewhere

and I write them across my arm
one more time, to make them more
real, to make them more,
for the evening I spent
with my face in your shoulder
(making stains, taking
 what was dead in me
 and pulling it out of
 my tear ducts -- using
 it like ink to draw
 a little book of maps
 on tissue paper, blue
 and spider red like blood
 vessels)

you said you would come
get me after a day or two, that
I did not belong here anymore
and I did not know (until
 now) how right you were (how
 lost I was until those routes
 were drawn along my paper wrist,
 the dotted lines that led me
 back to that X-marks-the-spot
 called home)

it is plain enough to show
to train ticket sellers, or
strangers when I need
directions:

I belong
where you
are

80.

there is a shade of being
underneath your body that turns
my skin the color of peach,
and pearls and other soft things

I am blanketed by the lengths
of you that stretch across my shadow
to make me cleaner and more
protected, and more, just much more --

and these old braided melodies preserve
your image in my skull, so you can stay
with me from however many miles
away you are, and I can burrow

beneath your surface into the caverns
I've found within you, and there are geodes
and crystallized stalactites clinging to
the roof of your mouth (and

they taste like rock candy) so
I can feel the heat of what is just under
you, the water falling from your
skin onto my skin

I am not partial to the distance
between us, but I am reminded constantly
of you in the finger marks you left all down
my arms (and only I can see them)

79.

the point is that she was wasp
venom on my tongue, and
she did not make me grow
any taller or older

she was dark and beautiful, but
you are something made of
afterglow and the softer shine
of stars past midnight

and I prefer the bluer water
you pour into my pores
to whatever gas she breathed
and you are its antidote

78.

I am just trying to read old poems about old lovers but
all I can do is stay here with(out) you and make
lists. I don't know what I am trying to remember
but writing it down helps me not to forget.
The music distracts me.
I've forgotten what those old lovers' faces
looked like and all I can recall now is the softish yellow
glow of the Christmas lights on your floor, and
the Christmas music that played by accident. And
how your face cracks a smile when you don't mean for it to,
and how your eyes look more gray than blue
at four-o-clock in the morning. And how you whisper please
sometimes when I am taking too long. Things like that.
Also, I remember the wisp of melody that curves
down your cheek with the stray tears you lose track of, and
your face when you listen to the darkest things I say.
More like your hands when you listen to the darkest
things I say, because you always place them over my fingers or
my heart, as if to remind me that you're still there.
It helps. We both know this is moving far too fast too
fast, but it feels so clean and it has been kind to us so far, and
I am not inclined to give it up so easily. So maybe I will take
you up on your offers. Maybe we will get rings, or tattoos,
and maybe everyone we know will try to understand but maybe
they will not, and maybe we will forget to care.

There is just something sitting in your skin that helps
me breathe a bit easier. I think I do the same for you.
It is something I would thank the gods for
if I thought they listened.

(But perhaps you are proof
 that they do.)

77.

I want to dance
with you even though my bones
are sore and I have been sick
for years, because this
music is so bright and this
wine is dark and I am having a better
time here tonight with you, not
talking yet, not even looking
yet, just sitting just near
enough to each other, than
I have in a good while.