A nightly spell of sleep falls  
heavy on the sea.  
Blue whales undulate their slow song,  
while soft-bellied mollusks are carried  
down, sand-ways like a wound. 

These swaying underwater breezes, 
this gentle flotsam of an oceanic dream 
are all for me, querida – a keepsake 
of my savage grief. 
Artifacts of deaths that no one died, 
ashes brimming with unnamed souls. 
I hate this disconnected dream,  
this crystalline suburbia,  
this history without light.  
You are the machine, I make and 
remake in my sleep. 

                        We could not save  
each other or ourselves in this forgetfulness. 
Yet, in the making, we disappeared 
into sound dressed in gray,  
where they said our hearts lived.  
Where the sword decides and  
Foucault lectures to the ghosts of crows 
about sex and the biopolitic. 
And what of colonialism? they squawk,  
Y que del negro atado?  
The sea distanced itself and sang 
of its guilty blood, of the bodies  
consumed in its salty lather. 
Forgive these ravenous waves  
for demanding sacrifice, a buffet of 
flesh and fat spread thick and fragrant.  
Pain is a difficult animal to domesticate.

They’re both convinced
that a sudden passion joined them.
Such certainty is beautiful,
but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

Since they’d never met before, they’re sure
that there’d been nothing between them.
But what’s the word from the streets, staircases, hallways—
perhaps they’ve passed by each other a million times?

I want to ask them
if they don’t remember—
a moment face to face
in some revolving door?
perhaps a “sorry” muttered in a crowd?
a curt “wrong number” caught in the receiver?—
but I know the answer.
No, they don’t remember.

They’d be amazed to hear
that Chance has been toying with them
now for years.

Not quite ready yet
to become their Destiny,
it pushed them close, drove them apart,
it barred their path,
stifling a laugh,
and then leaped aside.

There were signs and signals,
even if they couldn’t read them yet.
Perhaps three years ago
or just last Tuesday
a certain leaf fluttered
from one shoulder to another?
Something was dropped and then picked up.
Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished
into childhood’s thicket?

There were doorknobs and doorbells
where one touch had covered another
beforehand.
Suitcases checked and standing side by side.
One night, perhaps, the same dream,
grown hazy by morning.

Every beginning
is only a sequel, after all,
and the book of events
is always open halfway through.