Love is easier the headless way
what good is desire in a world
where there is only a thriving darkness
Your mouth is a gate
opening to any place away from here––
the crumbling mansion of my nothing heart
With this form-fitting cloth
I do wed
Let us spill into one another
like waves of agitated milk
Placing our thoughts elsewhere
onto unavailable others
while our useless arms
disappear into what frames us:
bench / bed / brothel of the mind
Everywhere we turn
winter remains unfinished
You don’t trust your mouth
and I don’t trust anyone
who says they love me
What are we willing to emotionally
barter for when all we have
is the simple meat of ourselves
And who can say what color the world
was before the earth’s canvas
began flowering paint.
I have this recurring dream
where we live nameless as mushrooms
in the shadow of primeval birds––
birds who eluded ornithologists
and didn’t want the press
But who agreed to soar forever
without landing
and seed the earth with minerals of light.
I awake, usually, in a choking grief.
How we’ve agreed to love one another
without ever opening our eyes.
From Martian: The Saint of Loneliness. Copyright © 2022 by James Cagney. Published by Nomadic Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.