one.

...when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one’s alone.

-Anne Sexton
THE TRUTH THE DEAD KNOW

You swing open a smile
and the sea opens inside me
the corpuscle of doubt turns
to periwinkle and dives through
cool October like a stone
my hand fits like
a small mercy on your hip
and lingers its ghost there
when not there- haunting
bone white light days,
with longing-
your eyes
smile and open in morning
with autumns unseasonable
warmth and the heart
that once died warms in
the last groans of summer sun;
your beauty and grace that
rises one full turn to
raise me up past the
dark brick and concrete of
the city and landscape a
man, from tidal rocks and sand
breathe- espuma life in to me a
instantaneous anemone of love
as constant as the days
rising light and hope
and life beyond anything
the dead may know-
because it is love that haunts me
here- and I long to be haunted

some [warm] body only yesterday

immerse Berrie
and purple throttle
choke
silences the engine
on Balmer Road
out to
Springville & Harley
Festival- twined
to the rush of
streets warm with
late season sun
and bleeding
asphalt, there the
contingent
burrows dark ribbons in to
hearts- promised
to heresies and
the distilled smolder of
each cubic centimeter
chromed- holy and unforgiving
the mistakes the flesh
has made:
gravel, granite, grave.

epaulets and melodies.

Touchdown I
--------------------
Orange Cat IV
--------------------

a.
thirteen misspelled birds
typed under the color
black and green,
the parrot is named
grenade- produce
reintroduced as
heirloom- new

b.
seals cracked the
long maligned petroleum
mold, red Bristol Cream
holds each modern wheel
loaned, rehearsed by the
numbers the unsigned
check lays like constant
renewal and rebuke- hating
all insanity but rubbing
against it like an orange cat
& celebrating it, with a
touchdown dance.

thebuffaloavenue

the bartender 23
a blond girl - encroaches
on me; solid behind
a beer- her happiness
wreaks against
me, perfume, eye shadow
and glare, she does
know this thing
having boy after boy
leave her heart
corralled by a lie-
it is that despair,
a letter sent and returned,
a drum submerged
it is a despair that will
not be ringed by
words, it is a deep
sadness, a cobble
stone under asphalt,
blue green and alone
long under horse hooves and
shit pushed slowly deeper
by each tractor trailer tire.

tools to know the way home.

metal stakes the cement, the floor
cracks along the
long line of history
the metal pushes up and floats all of mankind
like a feather
answers ribbon asphalt, and glue
wanes to perfection the
grease
reflecting the first single star
of solitude- evening.

$10.80

corn burns golden under
a sun foreign
the razor mimics
the soul and lets
go of the peeled
imagination,
i am here at this
cross road
burned by the
wonder of grass
blinded by
flowers and
wasted by the
space
in which
they grow.

the option of innocence

if i were to say blue
and spell it to you
with three extra letters
i would be cheating
it would be an admission,
there -
is your admission,
there is the gate, the take the
five syllables,
first
and third line
making sense of fall
and winter,
of the frozen toe
the child left to feed sea gulls,
the lonely
mother
leafing her magazine
i know and do not know the city
is raised daily
and the fires start
and stop with the
dawn and no one will ever
stop that
there is no utopia, not
while there are human hands, not
while there is fire