cory

the name means “hollow”
half dark and carved out
a secret, holy place
echoes like the warm red
moist sequoia’s bowel

two glass lenses chide
and diffuse my searing eyes’ line
mild-mannering my appearance
a “clark” until you grasp and
discard them

met you just before autumn’s reign
when sky greys and the wind frays
our words’ edges; i am only half awake

and i am not empty, but keep the
sacred place bare and untouched
like the name’s secret

maybe this time there’s no scattering to the icy wind.

instead a facile, placid winterfall
could touch the place to prepare it
for the winding journey of a new and crisp
trail of footprints

seven verses of note

in the blank glow i hide, watching him scraping his shoulder-blades against the rough skin of a tree until bark and back are blood red.

the automated brewer on at 7:00am, chocolate-creamered coffee awaiting us when we awake. a roommate’s father explaining the nub of a gas pipe. i’m no good at proving it: i want you and no one else.

tonight and all nights he believes in the visitors who will fondle the space under his pillowcase, driving him crazy with their absence.

Wednesday: Kidney stone removal.
(note: upgrade from diet 7up to lemonade. aspartame will be preferred)

counting the sounds of crickets in the dark; stroking the damaged piano keys; clacking in a dorian mode as a tree cracks and falls outside the house.

for his: accent, inability to stay, lion t-shirt, lip ring, neutral milk hotel, hands, one letter name, Macedonian food. for the softness of his kiss.

procul recedant somnia, et noctium phantasmata: hostemque nostrum comprime, ne polluantur corpora.

lunar eye

sometimes i can see in the dark

where no strand of moonlight
escapes the tangled trees’ grasp
i collect that handed over by blank palms

i step into olive green houses
i wear new, clicking shoes
i climb staircases creaking
and within sleepers’
eyewhites open and are pressed against

blackened air. i sleep in a bed
warm with chalk-white skin
and three-dimensional light let in,
a third dimension all my own,
uncovered, the spiral finally
uncurling that hidden from the light.

uncut, the stillness vibrates
and i am glad for the sleep

i reach out to
read your goosebumps like braille
instead meet the throbbing, lowest
heart. where the light
makes a secret of all but flesh,
white as a moon.

to pray

sunday, i find myself again
staring out at the congregation
too-short robes barely hiding my Converse

when i'm watching you in the greenlight
i'm dancing every moment at once
all the friends i ever danced with
i am re-memorizing them all

especially the slow and tear-blind dance of departure

mark me, licking with your tongues,
and open my heart with kneading hands,
i promise to try.
i hold no delusions.

this sunday i know, finally
to thank you;

to pray.

because, for all these moments,
i cannot speak and
i explode with gratitude
to those rocking back and forth under the lights

we are sharing all of this, this
terribly important love