since feeling is first
who pays any attention 
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate 
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

know when they’re going to die. It’s why  
she leaves the flock, lays beneath  

the magnolia bush while her sisters clamber  
into the coop, presenting herself only to us 

the next morning. Sure, I’m projecting—   
a human trait. But imagine walking  

into your own brutal death   
in the processing plant.

It’s no surprise, Lisa says,   
we’re such fearful creatures—  

full on chicken wings and fried chicken  
sandwiches and sesame chicken  

and chicken salad and rotisserie
chicken and BBQ chicken, chicken

fingers, chicken pot pie, chicken parmesan,  
chicken & waffles—we’re always eating  

fear. I swear I’ll stop every time I look  
at our own small flock from our kitchen  

window while preparing Korean fried   
chicken. And why do I need to include  

that extra adjective when I tell you what  
I’m cooking? If I only said fried chicken, 

would you render me whole or only smell   
paper buckets and grease? Watch me lick 

the fat from my fingers over a plate   
of bones? The things I love will kill me 

and kill the ones I love. The chickens   
outside, Lisa and I—full on sweet dark meat.

Let me give you my old address
so that if you are in the neighborhood
you can drive by,
see if they’ve repainted.
You might also see someone I used to know.
Maybe eventually 
we will see each other.

Let me give you my address
so that you can find it
on a map,
so that at least you will know
where I came from,
at least someone will know
where I came from.

On the map
it’s the pale orange shape
next to the light blue
of the water
where I walked on the wet sand
dragging a stick, drawing
a line that would lead back. 

REASON                /               UNREASON

the brain is                 

           an unlit synagogue 

easily charted               

           in dark waters

using machines            

           it can baffle faith

& therapy        

           it can asphyxiate

don’t worry                 

           the drowning dogs

your pretty head          

           painted for the gods

it’s simple                    

           to rage & riot & rot

to manage                    

           the vacant parking lot

with the appropriate     

           knives   do what some

medicines                    

           can not

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.

You are enough

Divinity flows in your fingertips
        with light so radiant
        every beat of your heart
a victory march
made of whole universes
        stitched by the hands of creation
        with flawless design
a prophecy You fulfill perfectly with every breath

        You

The sun wouldn’t shine the same without it
Creation is only waiting for You
                to smile back at it

Do you see it yet?

You are enough
        For the birds to sing about
        For the seeds to sprout about
        For the stars to shoot about

        Do you see it yet?

        Gardens in your speech
Fields of wildflowers in your prayers
        Lighthouses in your eyes
    No one else can see it for you

You have always been enough
You will always be enough

Your simple act of being is enough

            Do you see it yet?

to enjoy myself. enjoying you enjoying. yourself to(o). ooo!       enjoying. to enjoy myself enjoying you enjoying me enjoying myself enjoying you enjoying yourself    . enjoying enjoying yourself enjoying me enjoying you/me.   enjoying.enjoying myself you yourself enjoying yourself enjoying me enjoying you enjoying yourself. enjoying.   enjoying you. enjoying me.    enjoying you&me younme youme enjoying yummi.   enjoying you enjoying me enjoying myself. enjoying you enjoying joy enjoying joy yourself. you yourself joy&me enjoying. us 3 or 4. my joy and your joy — joy we enjoying   you enjoying me. you&me enjoying. you&me joying and enjoying. ain’t joying. andjoying. injoying. Me joying you and you joying me. you&me younme   youme you whom me — us. & joy is the you in me and the me in you. joy   joy.   joy is the and. the end. of all this you and me. younme. you in me. me in you. tho you-you and me-me. both younme i. both younme am. both younme is. joy is the and. joy is the end. joy is the in. the way thru you for me. the way thru you to me. the way thru me for you. the way thru me to you. seein me thru. seein you thru. seein you tru. seein me tru. truly seein thru you and me. truly seein younme. truly seein you in me. me in you. truly seein you and me. me and you. truly seein you end me. me end you. truly younme.

so joy.us how we enjoy ourselves. some each other. (u)s. 

Promise you wont forget
each time we met
we kept our clothes on
despite obvious intentions
to take them off,
seldom kissed or even slept,
talked to spend desire,
worn exhausted from regret.

Continue our relationship apart
under surveillance, torture, persecuted
confinement’s theft; no must or sudden blows
when embodied spirits mingled
despite fall’s knock
we rode the great divide
of falsehood, hunger and last year

How desire is a thing I might die for. Longing a well,
a long dark throat. Enter any body

of water and you give yourself up
to be swallowed. Even the stones

know that. I have writhed
against you as if against the black

bottom of a deep pool. I have emerged
from your grip breathless

and slicked. How easily
I could forget you

as separate, so essential
you feel to me now. You

beneath me like my own
blue shadow. You silent as the moon

drifts like a petal
across your skin, my mouth

to your lip—you a spring
I return to, unquenchable, and drink.

Soft as a Claude painting, the yellow sky tonight—
trees in the parking lot still thick, though the air, yes,
has an edge, the honey was solid in the jar
when I opened it this morning, found a single ant
frozen in the dunes, stunned by sweetness.
Can you really die of sweetness? Hard
to say yes, though I want to, looking up at these clouds
that make my heart jump: oh joy in seeing
though I can’t touch, like the girl repeating persimmon
as the waitress in the diner tells her about a tree
at the top of the hill she used to see, how beautiful
that vivid orange fruit was all at once.
Can’t touch them, but I see them in her eyes as
she remembers persimmons. Maybe that was
my mistake: thinking every love was different, a fruit
inside its own clear mason jar—my love, her love, his,
all separate as the trees they fell from. Maybe love
is more contagion, bubbles in a bathtub slowly
swelling, all the little circles drifting, gliding
gently into each other until they burst, until
nothing’s left but foam, the sound of rushing water.

It didn't take a Harvard Medical School degree
to detect you and I were not lovers destined to wed
but two viruses doing their best to infect each other,
two fevers that'd spread, different symptoms of the same
sickness. Past cure I am, now reason is past care.
Did I really wish to die? The doctor dismissed me
with the professional ease with which one might swat a fly,
as if for the fly's own good. So what
if you loved me more intimately than anyone ever would?
A cancer cell could say that of any body
it refused to let go. Once the heart was infected,
how could it be corrected? So what was I waiting for?
The truth is, the doctor smiled,
the microbe adores the flesh it's dating.