My head was still spinning from
the champagne mixed with the gin.
There were sparklers and at that moment
the alcohol reached my elbows.
All I wanted was to sit on a long subway ride
and read a book at 3 am,
the light still popping
from a thin piece of strong wire.
//
Leaving is not what scares me but the fact
we have a fridge filled with jars of things.
The subway had stalled beneath the water,
we were bending bark some moments ago.
And so we left to build forests.
I climbed a tree to see the world:
Below I gaze into memories of
the river current that met the
ocean current in a corner nobody
I know has ever been or will
ever mostly go.
And how do I tell people?
I haven’t written in enough time
the words are straight forward
I had lost my words.
//
The books I read are everywhere.
There is the American man in Saudia Arabia
hunting wolves. There were the two brothers
from India, in Cambridge, and a gypsy from
Czechoslovakia. A tech company in California.
The woman hiking alone, a few states over.
The poems begin after, pouring out on a screen
I couldn’t recall what I wanted to speak.
They were gone like calluses on a musician’s
fingers who lost his taste.
It had happened just in time for us to
drive over the bridge where we crossed a
state border, which made all the difference.
And I had almost called to tell you,
and I had almost yelled to turn around.
//
The way you make coffee is important.
The way you stare with your hands is
studied like most art: it is symbols.
The cold weather took my breath after
five minutes outside and was a lesson
in invincibility. We stay hopeful.
Please,
do not break freely.
//
It had been a walk at two in the afternoon
when you can feel the sun already wanting to set.
The coldness was damp and the light muted like
a trumpet being played in private.
Perhaps we see the city through one large piece of frosted glass.
I cannot quite see in, so I am unsure which way is east.
A beautiful chaos, something was always different.
But I could not name it.
And I could not touch it.