Red.

Do not look for carmine, foxglove, rust

or brick dust, but bloodshot corneas and

flushed cheeks of lovers descending 

steep precipices, blisters on palms held

to chapped lips, embers of ash. 

Think of half smiles, wind, oxblood

glowing suns settling behind skylines,

her hand on your thigh as the canyon

unwinds. Think of words blushing in 

your mouth, letters lingering, ripening,

falling from teeth like heavy pears. 

Think of it as a winter birthmark.

Think of it as biting your tongue. 

I can almost locate the place
in my body where the Arizona sun
is hidden, those mornings
we waded through inky water,
shaved our legs off the back of the
boat, were content to float from one
hidden canyon to another, to let
watermelon juice drip from our chins
and pool around our ankles.

And at night, we dove naked,
rippling the moon-stained lake,
floated on our backs and covered
our eyes with the earth's weight.
We stretched until our bones
creaked, until the tendons in our
necks strained, as we reached for
the Milky Way just above us.  
The wind's scent, like raspberries,
settled in our gums, and sometimes
as if stirring from sleep, I taste it.

Dawn.

Each curtain is an exhalation,

each street a sleepy murmur.

At this hour, one could dance

unclothed and breathless

wrapped in a scarf of smoke,

wrapped in the black milk of dawn.

Your skin is a glinting cricket

in black tar, your violin song

like gauze, like grieving. 

Blueprints.

I peer through the eaves now and then,

through the fallen beams of afternoon tea. 
I find a message from a secret self,

an intimacy too private to speak of. 

My soul hangs from nails

and flutters in the unsound framework

like deserted blueprints,

like bed sheets in an open window. 

My hair is tangled in the latticework.

My fingertips are stained with ink. 

DMB.

Indian style on my ladybug blanket. We peeled the starbursts from their wrappers.  I leaned back on my elbows and peered at the eerily green sky. One drop fell and licked my knee. You leaned into me. I rested my cheek on your shoulder and breathed you in. Dave and the band appeared on stage and I closed my eyes, waiting for the first vibration, the first strum. 

Rain drizzled down my neck and pooled in the crevices of my collar bones. Don't Drink the Water sounded from the stage as I burrowed beneath the blanket, pressing my forehead to my knees. I inhaled deeply; coffee, fabric softener, a day's sweat. Inside my cotton cocoon, the rain seemed less intense. Lively, but muted. Rain saturated the blanket and seeped though my sweater, rinsing my skin. I shivered and hummed Lousiana Bayou. I lifted the blanket and donned my sunglasses to shield my eyes from the downpour. One large drop splattered on the right lens, amplifying the red and blue stage lights. I refocused my eyes on the drop and counted the squiggly amoeba-like edges. The harmonica reverberated through my chattering teeth and you held my hand and we ran. 

Eight sixteen.

I can't pretend to know anything.

Just this morning 

you offered me a cup of sleep

in the house where our bodies

first became one in the other

and our howls were those of wolves 

for the celestial body,

for the fullest moon. 

I can't pretend to know anything. 

Just last month

you spoke of cosmic catastrophes 

of our sun expanding 

of our seas boiling 

of waving goodbye to all we've known

and I wept because I desire to live

as long as the world itself. 

I regret that I am not a kitten 


dozing in the milky light, 


whiskers twitching. 


I regret that I am not the sheets 


on your side of the bed,


wrinkled and warm. 


You have gone for coffee 

and I miss you.