何日/What Day

                                    On this seventh day 
                                    of the seventh month, magpies 
                                                  bridge in a cluster
                                                  of black and white

                                    the Sky King crosses
                                    to meet his Queen, time tracked 
                                                  by the close-knit wheeling             
                                                  of stars. I watch. You come

                                    to me tonight, drunk on wine 
                                    and cards, nails ridged black
                                                  with opium
                                                  to ease the pain

                                    of work. We are
                                    all men here. Any
                                                  body can be
                                                  a bridge, little raven,

                                    your eyes squeezed shut
                                    but not from pain.
                                                  We are 
                                                  a trestle, a grade

                                    we build together. 
                                    What matter if you say
                                                  you’d never choose
                                                  me were there

                                    women willing
                                    in this desert. I
                                                  chose. I choose 
                                                  the memory we share 

                                    of rivers, your hair
                                    of smoke and raw,
                                                  wet leather. A man
                                                  in another 

                                    man’s hand makes himself
                                    tool or weapon, says
                                                  the overseer, as if a man’s use
                                                  to another is only one

                                    of work. Pleasure
                                    is our only chosen
                                                  future. You
                                                  are the home 

                                    I briefly make, the country
                                    I can return to. Now
                                                  the moon wheels
                                                  its white shoulder

                                    in the dark as you push me
                                    to earth, slip 
                                                  my whiskered tip
                                                  of hair into your mouth.