FOR THE STARGAZERS
THE DREAMERS
THE ROMANTICS
THE FANTASTS
When you ask me, “Which star is ours?”
I say, “All of them.”
I have not been time traveling;
I have been traveling through time.
At night I close my eyes & dissipate into cloud atlas,
band & billow noctilucent, then rearrange in rare pattern.
What a beautiful way to break apart.
A letter to my love, who must be lost at sea.
Were most of your stars out? You forgot how to read charts. You circumnavigate the earth searching for a compass that works. On land there is a woman made entirely of ocean. Her heart is a storm. It beats against the metal hull of her ribs, r e l e n t l e s s.
You think of her often.
Were most of your stars out? The constellations are crooked. Planets no longer align properly. We are not magnetic.
I’m running out of ways to explain what you mean to me.
You’re gravity.
You’re the sun.
You’re the center of the universe.
Shut up.
Were most of your stars out? In love we become nocturnal, taciturn, we let our hands do all the talking, capsize every night in a sea of bed sheets, reaching for a body of water to drown in. You are not him.
We will find each other as soon as our eyes adjust.
Were most of your stars out? Yes.
every.single.one.
I. Full
ANTIQUES & ODDITIES
i.This morning E. E. Cummings broke into your
home & stole your beloved typing machine.
The keys got stuck. Your brain stopped working.
Line breaks are another way to
frac-
ture the soul.
ii.When the Cole Bros. brought circus
carneys to Cape May they came with
a heat wave
shimmering gasoline vapor
elephant dung
& a man named Charlie
whose eyes befriended my big cat tattoo
while my own rode
the s p i n n i n g
carousel
of his black teeth.
iii.There are 7 billion people on this planet
& they are all made of
tree rings.
PURPLE AVENS & PRAIRIE SMOKE
There used to be meadows in our chests.
We would walk among them pointing out
the purple avens & prairie smoke,
which are actually one & the same,
but we weren’t botanists back then.
We’d roll around fields of nodding flowers,
nod off ourselves in tangled stems
until dreamscapes broke into delicate
red petals hiding beneath our eyelids.
In those days we made love from concentrate
& it was the sweetest thing you could ever taste.
LOVE & LUNACY
In 360 B.C.E. Plato wrote, “Love is a madness.”
Modern science has since validated this claim
with studies that show similarities occurring
in brain events involving love & lunacy.
Our romance is a chemical dance between
dopamine, adrenaline, & serotonin.
So when I tell you that every time I
smell sandalwood on your skin
hear your name from another’s lips
feel your breath on my neck
see your face, I’m a wreck
because my brain lights up like a city at dusk,
my veins all flood, the planets rust.
& when I say I’m crazy,
deranged, lovesick & struck,
I’m not just making this up.
My dear, these are all symptoms
of the madness that is love.
SMALL STEPS, GIANT LEAPS
What are the lies you tell yourself?
That it’s impossible, will never work,
the pressure is far too much?
That the space between us is galaxies
we travel light-years just to touch?
How quickly you forget
we are astronauts.
Our small steps
are giant leaps.
Just you wait & see.
CANOPIC JARS
The night you fell to your knees & whispered mythologies into the canyon curve of my hips, you were not careful. For days they echoed, carbon-steel pinballs bouncing around tender ligaments & bruising ribs. I have notcaught my breath since.
Recall how the sky appeared a smeared blackboard of promises you never intended to keep.Bloodworms flooded from the earth, flounderingen masse unimaginable, ammonia-soaked. Stars
d i s s o l v e d
in a chalk dust clap of applause for featsthat meant nothing. At least not to me.
We kept dried organs in canopic jars, unpeeled dusty strips of linen, wrappedhollow torsos in white gauze.
In time we will become archetypes. Linguists will invent new words to describe the unprecedented ways in which we hurt.
SPACESHIPS
Tell me about the summer
you shed your fingerprints
& wrapped your palms
in heart lines, tied them
to the stars & swung.
Tell me how the moon
kissed your feet nude,
about how our bodies
became spaceships
by evening & blasted off
the heat of asphalt.
Tell me you miss those
shimmering nights
guided by sky maps
measuring the distance
between our lips.
I do.
ON LOVE & FUTURISM
Many nights passed
in that fashion,
bodies & lights
wet with neon,
blurred & abstract.
Much like a futurist
painting,
we moved
too fast.
POP ROCKS & SODA POP
We were electric that night
the power lines collapsed
& you laughed because
our cell phones died
& I, for the life of me,
could not find a flashlight.
There were plenty of candles,
not a single match, &
only the palest moonlight
catching your skin
through open windows
as we listened to the winds howl
the thunder clap
the sky break
the branches snap
& we explored the storms
that have long since existed,
braved the blizzards within,
traded breaths & tangled limbs,
all of this until the winds calmed
the thunder died
the sky healed
the branches sighed
& we collapsed like power lines
because we were electric that night.
VIOLETS & VAGUERIES
Speak to me in violets & vagueries
like yo
u have a masterpiece
buried in the roots of your teeth
begging for extracting.
Touch me with white pepper palms
& fingers that move gingerly
across my skin like it’s canvas
for words you haven’t yet written.
& when you grip my whalebone hips
like rocks jutting into the Atlantic
& when your knuckles turn white
with odes not meant for the ocean
& when the sky dims to witness
fireworks burst from your mind
know that the show is not over—
that no moonbeam or starlight
or chemical cocktail finale
compares to basking in the
limelight glow of your eyes.
STARGAZING
I wasn’t admiring
the freckles on your skin;
I was stargazing.
& when I said I wanted
to make love to you,
I meant all of you.
& when you felt my fingers
tracing poetry
over parts of you that
were supposedly broken,
know that all I saw
were prisms, refracted light,
& everything I wanted
to make mine.
BOTTLE ROCKETS
How can I regret
nights spent
shooting stars
like bottle rockets
we were comet tails
& tattered sails
we haven’t
loved like that
since.
THE EINSTEIN-ROSEN BRIDGE
This is me in the past
scolding you in the future
for hanging hopes from vaulted ceilings,
watching them dangle limp like so many
d a s a s.
e d t r
This is me on the back porch
barely listening
to the Tree Frog Symphony Orchestra
play in E major while we talk about
minor ironies.
Practicing paradiddles, s k i p p i n g stones,
measuring distance with one eye [closed],
staring down the throat of a black hole.
If there is a bridge that connects your universe
mine, you better believe I will find it.
The Perseids fly on mobiles,
astronomical fevers burning up
& breaking into cold sweats.
We count red flags & white flares,
daydream what it would be like to sleep.
THE BRIGHTEST THING
I need you to know something—
that when you’re feeling defeated
beat up & down
on your luck
when you feel like you haven’t done
anything or enough
that the most important things in life
cannot be built with your hands.
& even on days you feel burnt out
dim in the darkness
lacking sheen
I need you to know—
you’re still the
brightest damn thing
I’ve ever seen.
REDWOODS
Three nights ago I dreamt we were redwoods, majestic & towering, in a wilderness dense with metaphors that coalesced in fog mist. Our love had grown slow like an old forest, names carved in heartwood, layers of bark thick as thieves protecting unnumbered invisible cities contained within your skyscraper trunk.
I took the stairs down instead of up.
There will be others, I know. They will come & admire the texture of your skin, your august boughs, hacking off pieces to bring home, leaving you exposed, soft & fibrous, red-brown, fleshly.
Our limbs may never touch, but roots laid shallow & wide will tangle beneath the earth. Of this, I am certain.
When I awoke the trees fell in my chest. I was left, wondering if a dream is all we’d ever be.
WILD THING
It is not a stretch to say
your eyes are satellites,
drawing everything in
with cosmic light
& sparkling curiosity.
Last night you were
the littlest cowboy,
lassoing fireflies
& kicking up stardust
wherever you jumped.
This morning you were
the tiniest lion man,
flipping your golden mane
from side to side
& roaring with delight.
Tomorrow you will be
no small wonder,
a wild thing stomping
footprints into the heart
of anyone who is watching.
MONET BLUR
I’m on the train to Killarney
shuffling through songs
when your voice comes on
thick with accent.
I can’t see your face,
so I keep staring
at the Irish countryside,
details lost in a Monet
blur of greens that
pop against gray skies,
forehead against cold pane
fogging up from lips
too close to the window,
now shower steam,
flag falling
like a towel
around your feet.
SANDSTORMS & MONSOONS
I don’t know your laugh
or the sandstorms that
rage when you’re mad,
escaping dust-filled lungs
in dry, tired gasps. But,
I know the way my name sounds
coming out of your mouth
at unearthly hours,
humid,
wet with monsoon,
heavy,
breathing that leaves me
breathless. & I know, I know,
more than anything, I know,
the stars shudder like our skin
across immeasurable distance
as we bury our needs
in each other.
YOU CAN’T BLAME THE RAIN
Your engine caught fire
on I-95, exactly 30
miles from home.
I know
because I’d been
counting mile markers.
I do that sometimes
when there is just
no sense in
talking to you.
The rain was a
swirling mist & when
you got out of the car
you were a bear,
arms high above your
head, roaring that
if only it were
raining harder
we wouldn’t be in
this mess.
That is always
your logic—
blame the rain.
You, love, are
without fault,
arms above your
head & all.
But if you’re going to
lose your mind today,
then I will lose it
with you.
THE RIFT
I did not notice the rift.
It went something like this:
one morning I awoke
to find an unknown
body of water between us.
Suddenly we were
separate continents
& I did not notice the rift.
I’M SORRY, OKAY?
I’m sorry for bodies I explored
& lips I kissed that were not yours.
I’m sorry I don’t know how to unlove or unfuck
former flames, even more so for the embers still aglow.
I’m sorry I can’t extinguish every thought
that did not begin or end with how my curves
fit into your contours.
Mostly I’m sorry for running out of promises
I haven’t already made before. But know this—
all the love I can’t swear,
I will show.
II. gibbous
FIVE MONTHS AGO
Five months ago you sent a letter, & every day for the last five months I’ve checked the mailbox hoping it would come. Today, it finally came. Today, I stopped wondering what your air hand would say in its chicken-scratch calligraphy. I stopped imagining what your cologne would smell like, or if, after all this time, it would bring grapefruit apologies, peppermint remorse, & finish off by asking for deep cedar forgiveness. Today, I sat in my car with a swatch of red fabric from an old favorite sweater, soaked in the scent of you, closed my eyes & let the ocean tide pull of your soul bring me backward in time to five months ago. Five months ago, when there was no question that we were destiny, when nothing could come between what was always meant to be. My eyelids, overwhelmed by the swelling sea, could not keep their levee. Thoughts distended into daydreams, poetry you wrote about waking up hungover like swollen rain clouds & visiting our favorite coffee shop we don’t even know the name of yet. Reveling in silence, faces so close our noses touch, only breaking it when one of us finds something important enough to say. Today, I finally let go of the pain I’ve been harboring, finally got closure from that moment, five months ago, when the universe fell asleep at the wheel.
LONG DAYS, MEANINGLESS NIGHTS
Long days, meaningless nights.
The tides come & go, come & go.
Mostly, they just go, leave me
standing on a starless beach
alone,
gazing into gunmetal seas
searching for the glint & glimmer
of hope.
& the only thing I know
is how far I am from the woman
I want to become, the kind
who doesn’t come undone
when the waves get rough,
Stargazing at Noon Page 1
