trying 2

Amongst the curling smoke mountains,

Cosied into the dimpled chin,

Your unfurnished apartment

With a ginseng and lavender candle burning.

The sun is out today,

Snow melts in the shape of black ice,

A few hours ago, my car hood is stuck up on its hind legs,

Trying to get a light, or at least a drag

By the side of the highway. I smile

At the pieces of us the other does not know.

Because in the steam, faces wet

With something from the inside

Mixing indistinguishably with something

From the outside, inches apart, no space apart,

Quietly touching,

Warm hand, cold water, hot water,

Breast, knee, neck, cheek,

Dragging along the dew like dawn,

Blowing cool and refreshing across your body

Like rain, we are held, and seen, and known.

My eyes are dark rotating pools,

I feel them unspooling out towards you—

Filling the vacuum between us until

When I breathe, you must breathe,

And when you move,

I must move.

You are saying you see me working

The world over, processing and reprocessing

Like some old giant apple computer,

Like some black box math equation.

I am saying I feel my power through you,

Like the call to worship you feel in your bones,

Like the memories of trees that make up your trunk.

Oh the snow unmelted on the shadow side of roofs

Like your fathers narrow mouth. You say he is cruel.

Oh the narrow streets and big trucks of this town

Nestled in the valley, like your mother’s quiet listening

Eyes darting like hills and then touching clouds,

Cracking, rolling, unearthing everything around her.

Oh to know you like the thousand colored roofs of this town

Sprawling into the mountains. But you are not Scranton.

It is a shallow metaphor. And yet this light is you

These houses and hills, the history of electricity mines and railroads

The cold walk between the hotel and the only thai restaurant in the city,

The smiles we see, the plated windows of melted sand, pebbles, rubble,

Mud, steel of grates, the giant spruce in the courtyard.

Everything is you, fades into the sailing blue of you.

The glow and darkness of your skin making a barrier

When I touch it. I don't know how you are possible.

It feels like your skin encloses the whole world. I will always

Be pawing at that border between us, waiting to come in.