^{after Marie Howe}

Last night, the boy—
                                   you’ve already grieved—crawls 
                                        
                  through the window
                                                                  of who you once were
              & whispers,
                                              Listen. Listen.

                                    Ten years off heroin and he’s still here.

              You say no—not 
                                                            again—so it feels like a power
                                                            against your will
                                              holds the flame
                     under the bent spoon

    & pulls closer your last breath
                                                       of good sense.

        A sweet sweet hum begins                                   as he stops
           
the constellation bleeding                    from the pale crook

      of your arm with a kiss
                                                knowing you would oblige this
        oblivion                           this strange song

            growing loud & lovely               louder & lovelier

til’ you’re nothing
                                    but the warmth
                                                                  of life’s slippery goodnight—
         hovering above yourself
                                                            you find the boy splashing
                through puddles,
                                                        it’s charming the way he calls you
          to the edge—
                                 Again! he says, taking your hand,
                                                                                                  but you beg him to stop.    

the last bump   was eight years ago       i pray the man who sold it to me 

goes     to my heaven                  i want him clean          i want to kiss him 

yes       yes i’ve been alive            for centuries  trespassing through the yuck 

of every universe          i’m still here         i’m not here yet         why even ask 

such a tired     question                            the body sheds the body in its sleep 

time is the only thing                that passes         the more of it you’ve lost 

the      more      of        it           you’ve                 gained 

^{(Miles Davis, 1926–1991)}

This is what heroin must feel like—

Miles Davis exacting

his way through “Autumn Leaves”—
pretty and cold, a slowly spreading frost

along synapses and veins,
mapping interstellar darkness

one blue note at a time. Sometimes you could hear
him thinking through the changes

like he was hunting himself, relentless
and without mercy, then a burst of blue

flame, squeezing the Harmon mute like a man screaming
from the bottom of a mine shaft—

but however brightly the darkness glows,
it is still darkness, and Miles was a blackbird

on a field of snow, beautiful, distant, quiet—

and however many steps you take to meet him he flies
ten more feet away.

You lead me to that place 
where addicts give themselves up. 
I have given myself to the linear     to 
the straight line. 

No longer turning. 
No longer considering 
that which could 
have occurred. 

I’m a rocket blasting into 
the unknowable. 
No more pondering     forever 
heavy     forever sick with it. 

No longer booming fados. 
Or sitting in rooms with suicidal 
guitarists plucking sunrise. 
No more addiction among addicts. 

I’m confessing this to them. 
They are moaning. 
They are asking me to leave. 
I leave you here. 

^{The subject of lesbianism is very ordinary […]
            — Judy Grahn}

in darkness of March’s midnight          she is eyes:
            moon rays rebound lake ripples to eggplant purple walls
your hands find her body         face lies upturned, opened
            smaller than weeks prior. She knows you prefer protruding hip bones,
feels hungered for by you,       not memory of the boy, her brother 
diaphragms guttural groan,      cold in body bag not on pleated comforter,
            you’ve described your favorite body your type as “heroin skinny” 
she knows you like the ripples of her torso but            before you knew her brother  
also concave trajectory to pelvis bones            as drug addict,
            loving you is an argument with the impossible.

Note the diameter of your invisible ink tattoo as if it hides
a crossword hint like “Clueless dope for dopamine”
But not because your inner twin sold all your Rap albums
for a white powder that made you feel touched by God, yet
left a trail like Comet. Note how a certain name trails off with
the number e to perhaps signify their constant interest in
a continuously growing silence. Does an infinite series
of silences imply addition or addiction? In one language
you understand, pegadu means touching and begins with
the letter P. Like Pi is filled with touches of fruitful irrationality,
and may hide a circle’s Private Key. Note how rumors of you
crossing the street to sneak rides on fire trucks are irrational, but
not because you’re vain or became a pyromaniac. The circumference
of urinal cakes may be solved with Pi or dissolved with pee.
Is it irrational that you looped like an extension cord while trying
to solve for the value of P, but got beat like a bowl of egg yolks
for wetting the bed? During the beating was their mouth agápē or
agape? Has it not been proven that trauma only feels transcendental
due to the ratio of the diameter which severs us to the circumference
which makes us a whole? Being born under the Sign of the Asp might
be key, but note that a Volta can turn in currents of a Ghanaian river
or in currents alternating like a weathervane until any cryptic tattoo
could simply signify who held you down and touched you, but also
told you to hold it forever because their love was like the Holy Ghost.