composed in SFO airport while waiting for the redeye back to Boston

Apr 9, 2012

so I don’t know whether to turn around at your doorway

so hesitation drips the milk from sore eyes

so I scratch the walls

so I peel flakes of plaster

tumble like dead moths

erode my fingernails

which have grown long and desperate like homeless shadows

before the sun rises

we dimple red sheets under hard white ceilings

limbs curled into smiles

and then we are chasing each other

canyons underfoot

dust and sky tangled in your hair

skin eating the sun

like a stick of yellow butter

the sky is heavy on our backs

back in your room

the walls crawl like hands of clocks

we dip fingers into skin and bone

draw each other close

like curtains in lamplight

and then I’m at the terminal

a mold of you blooming across my tired posture

as the janitor cleans

the floor on which I lie, hugging myself,

leaving an unvacuumed fetusprint on the carpet

I’m in Santa Barbara

The tides are coming fast

and I am running away from them into some kind of loneliness.

come

bring your

guitar strings and

unfinished crosswords and

laundry on the floor as teacups chatter impassively

a gigabyte of sunlight melting losslessly into red red shadows

4/7/2012