the blueshift journal

creaking back to the dim blue

                                   of your body, not morning

 

exactly, except for the way you turn
          from me. I see your face in another’s

 

                                               more often than the past permits,

                                   (data cycle expires the 20th)

 

          your mother’s apricot scrub –

I should have asked – tastes vine

 

                                   on my lips & if I rouse yours will you taste

          her too? just thinking ahead here, stuck

 

with the then & now, when we write
          each other in the future, what are you

 

                                               drinking? what will we say to our mothers?

                                   I glitter my phantoms, make them prancy.

 

          I long too much, symptomatic of trust

which last I heard you would not

 

                                   touch me in ways like the last.

                                               prognosis: alright, I suppose,

 

my feet are cold with the night
          before tried to rue / burnt out bar

 

                                   in a cloying mood & yet . . .
                                               dancers in the corner moved

          the way I wish we could

instead. I became a taut one fearing

 

                                   my own sloe eyes and you,
                                               your hair, beware, the mounted deer

 

          loomed over us

                   & I wished for 90% more

 

          bottle peel to shred. lately

                   everything I speak spins you

 

                                               into dread, back to the haunting

                                   of your skuthery head.

 

I only want to talk fault
          lines, baby, how once I lived

 

                                   on the largest in the country,

                                               how I don’t mean to keep

 

                   shrinking into that city it’s just these
                                   webs of houses leave me speechless,

 

          like the phrase Post-K, or seeing

glass hit the street for the first time.

 

                                   speaking of streets, what do you have

                                               against those swings, or for her

& her & her?

 

I know there are lines
          you just don’t cross so hold off

 

                   showing me yours except please
                                   don’t – I’ll open my mouth for you;

 

                   I’ll meet you in the bathroom.

                   I’ll meet your come here lean

 

                   against the corner counter, wait
                                   for the door to declare us alone.

 

          we only like me when you’re drunk.

these arms of mine shaking & now.

 

                                   for one thing, I can’t believe you never saw

          Patrick Swayze, not in that way, helpless

 

                   against Jennifer Grey in her summer-

          turned skin.

 

                                               . . . why are you awake?

 

                                   who waits for answers like these.

                   I swear that two can be one,

 

even   if   my   deer

                           foams   rabid  &

 

               sometimes              plays horse,

 

          hoofing plans away

 

                                                           you can exit this poem

                   don’t cut me off

                                                       through the window even

                   before I can say,

                                                   without fire

 

love – the fine line
                                   between every heaving thing.