Estranged

Tell them I don’t wish to come any closer,
that I don’t care if I never belong,
if there is a sea, however blue,
between the world and me,
that always had a stronger
claim within.
Tell them I understand
the soft cloister of blood,
also that I’ve ceased being
theirs long ago
long before the beat went wrong,
even though the heat
floats like a shawl, crimson.
Tell them I know the name
of each color, the bright ivory
of rage, the satin gold
of greed, the old rose of lust,
but not this one, this one,
however blue, that nothing
can defeat.
Everything has gone
through me tinted with its sheen,
even the soft, silky hands
of my lover, who knows
I recognize well all the things
he sacrificed me for,
only that I could never,
never call them — Mine.

Amsterdam

It may have been that day, in Amsterdam,
where the streets are red as poppies
and never deem they hurt —
this is not sex’s affair —
it may have been that day
yes
that I fell
and lost track of myself,
seizing what Love
had to say,
when I saw clear
tears of Desire
rolling down
your cheeks,
sitting naked
on this chair
in the morning light.
It may have been that day, in the city of Sex,
that I lost track of the sky,
the forgetting,
the holy innocence
of those who were never
betrayed.
And I wanted the earth to stop
— it had to stop,
yes
before the star
of our being together
and the clock within it
moved out of sight.
But it was not Time’s affair,
Desire is fleeting
as tears,
it was just
the wrong city,
too rose
for flame,
yes
too flat
for faith
yet
see what the dove
had done to me—
when she returned
from the land
with her red wings of neon.

No Miracle

When I knew I lost it all
when I came apart
like a loose rosary
on a hospital floor,
I had a vision of his hand,
my lover’s hand, going
down my spine, his
smile entered me,
no Christ, no angel,
just flesh and blood
trembling in the morning
light. All I could think
of, on this floor, was
clear water running
down my hair and
soap in place of dry blood,
no matter if it meant
vanishing twice before
reaching that minuscule
bathroom. That’s where
I had this vision,
between the bed
and the bathroom door,
lying half-naked,
with no other thought
than this, to wash my hair,
his hand against the Sky,
and I shivered
like water.
No Christ, no angel came
when they took away
my dignity, I was shocked
by my lover’s hand
writing “I’ve neglected you”
in the small of my back.
And no matter if he
took away my reason
before the world did,
or if he could take more,
I finally reached
the bathroom
and slowly washed
my hair, his hand
sustaining me.

Ariel

What happens here is a tale
of madness, an endless story.
We wake with no memory
in a garden once called Eden
facing the mounts of No Longer,
the raw red anguish
of Gethsemane.
And tender is the green
and ashen are the fruits,
and only the smell, the smell of blood
is clear and warm as the air.
The wind has discolored the heart,
no one now can shed a tear
other than for oneself —
the soul is quiet as stone.
And under these closed eyes
the sun turns from orange to gold,
and the Hesperides are high,
high on color and wine,
and we live in the corner
of their mouth, kissing,
fucking, but it is the wrong taste,
the wrong shade,
there is an ache, here,
soothed by something near,
so near — we can’t see.
Barely a lash moves
in Gethsemane, barely a leaf,
and for that torpor,
for that torpor only,
no garden will be given back,
but a city, a city so bright,
no one will ever sleep —
again.