Querer

It’s a problem, the words stumbling
drunkenly over my tongue. A problem
not new, nor complicated, nor one
which a good memoir makes when
the problem resolves and I live or
die happily ever after; no, it’s one so
meek, pitiful as the narrow tributary
trailing behind the idle dog at his
favourite lamppost, not worth the
minutes it takes to write something
which isn’t a poem, not really, and
then send it off to lie still as a bed
in a condemned hotel in a dead
seaside town. I have a problem,
five words, words I should have
left behind long before turning
thirty-one, and now that I think on
it it’s a riddle, so simple it could
drive me mad, so simple it really
should have an answer. When it
fell from me at eight it was so easy.
And now I’m not and it’s not and
when my heart is howling I want to
go home it takes a minute an hour
a day a restless month of bleeding
and saltwater and a fear of daylight
I can’t quite explain and when it’s
done, when I’m calmer and warm
and the rain is soft on the windows,
it’s still a problem, because home is
you.

No como amigo

My hands make me too nervous
all that fretting and fidgeting
so I watch yours.
Watch them write the story of my life
misspelling my name to make me laugh
misspelling everything else because you’re shit at spelling.
I watch them write
Incompatible with human life
as though that were a joke too.
You scrawl my name again
(more capillaries of ink than language)
and when you spell it right this time
I know we’re lost here.
Watch you try not to write
Disorder.
Hear you say
You have no idea.
See you write my name once more
the trailing tail of a
why?
scaling three lines down the page.
If you need me
I watch your hands
your safe, blue hands
blue like summer sky
blue like–
Come and grab me
blue like an upturned iceberg
lost in this new air
Just come and grab me
and hear my own voice straining
against
Please.

Escocia

I read it in your voice,
and then I read it again.
Slower
luxuriating on each syllable
as though there are mountains on my tongue
forest air brushing its surface
clean as truth.
I read it in your voice
because mine is not my own;
mine
hijacked by virus
is deliciously foreign,
its otherness a sharp scratch
from a silk sheet.
I read it in your voice
say my name in your voice
flirt and sing and laugh
all your voice
all flowing spring water
closer than you can be
closer than time and chance and the
squawking bird I’m
weaning
from my
chest
will permit.
A hillslide off the edge of the page.
Gravel shifts.
A sharp scratch,
but the silk forgiven.
Tonight,
I’ll read the whole damn book.
Tomorrow,
sated,
not even your voice
will slip from my tongue.

Rubio

Silence bleeds from the sheets that held you
from the skin that sighed your name.
I turn the day we met,
the truth of us,
a hundred ways
and it’s still the truth.
No fancy could repair
the tears in my eyes
nor the hunch of your neck
nor the stammer of hope
I had no sense to hide.
There was no other way
no lost ending
no world in which I was not
on my knees
blind
reaching for you every way I knew.
No world in which it worked,
in which your eyes, hay-green,
met the prayer in mine
with softness.
No world in which that prayer
had a god to hear it.

Espera

The whole ocean on my chest
but a laugh breaks through,
a ripple under the tide
spilling from the glass
as I skip and fall and skip again.
They made me run today,
wires trailing
like secrets I can’t keep
as the ocean thickened,
concrete
poorly rendered
edges cutting through.
But now I lie still
quiet as it gets
Quiet
but for the ocean
and the sound of my heart
tripping over its feet.
It knows.
It’s known all along, I think.
A skip
a trip
a fluttering breath
a voice in the hall
not yours
not yet.
It has always known
(it told me and everything
back when winter stained the sky)
but I knew better.
One cord trails me still,
a secret I can’t shake
tucked into the crook of my elbow.
A voice in the hall
Not yet
but soon.
Any minute I’ll pull it free,
hand you my secret.
Any minute.

Ciega

Blink
and I’ll miss it.
Keep blinking
If I don’t look in the mirror
it can’t look back
with too many eyes
and a joke
that spears my core.
If I breathe
slowly
enough
I can pretend it’s air
just air
no billow of blood
no laughter in the dark
nothing waiting for a slip
no danger when I
Fall.
Careful
The voice in my ear
the whisper behind every thought
keep blinking
blink and I’ll miss it
Blink and it’s still the forest
still dark and dense
and the wood still sings in tune.

Close my eyes
and I’ll miss it
let it fall
let the leaves burn away.
The faces in the mirror are blind
and my home is the soil.

Blink and I’ll miss it.
Blink
and I’m safe.

Herida

It’s nothing.
A scratch,
a sting,
a tremor in bone.
It’s nothing
until the first drop lands
fat and cool
tracing the curve
of my-
It’s not nothing.
It’s a buzz,
a whisper,
it’s a secret
being told too fast.
Another drop,
fat and cool,
racing down my-
It’s something alright.
It’s scraping,
it’s gnawing,
a claw in my chest
engraving its name.
Heavier now, rain
fat and cool,
weaving its way through my-
It’s real,
it’s loud,
a song carved deep
as the rain falls,
fat and cool,
soaking through my-
It’s-
It’s a ruin
It’s an ache
It’s a song and
a name and a secret
and the claws are so sharp
and it’s carving me clean and I
don’t think I know as the rain
pelts me through if it’s
forcing its way in or
if it’s about to
burst out of
my ribs
But
in
a
moment
I’ll remember.
Slowly
slowly as healing,
slowly as raindrops on skin,
I’ll remember that
this life
is mine.
In a moment
I’ll remember
to tilt my face to the sky
and laugh.

Confianza

I did, you know, I did as promised, then covered it with a sweep of darkness that will never brush off.

Darkness smudged into my palms, their heels, caught under my nails like splintering wood.

Ten wands told me a lie and I pressed it to my heart.

The cursor blinked

And I pressed it to my heart.

Cobarde

Hey, hope your weekend’s going well.

Did you survive the nightshifts?

I can’t think of anything but the way you rested a finger between my wrists as you bound them in rope.

Are you free tonight?

Yeah me neither

Someone smelled like you and it ruined my whole week.

I deleted your number twice this week but I remember it too well now.

It’s not mild, not mild at all.

Yeah.

Yeah, me too.

The machine does its work.

The machine lies on the floor and stares at the ceiling and wonders what it’s like to be human.

Please.

My heart missed three beats in one breath and they all sounded like your name.

Please do anything but leave.

Don’t leave.

Oh, fuck.

I wish you’d leave.

Muestrame

Again
my heart finds the freckle on the back of your hand
watches it move in the space between us
draws a line from that freckle to its twin
four inches up
four inches of humble skin.
My heart trails to your fingertips
gentle, neat, sure
all things I will never be.
I watch your fingers curve and flex
your wrists turn
subtle as sunrise
the space between two feckles steady
(another thing I will never be)
and then a voice
the voice which has been low and soft beside me these two minutes
asks if I got all that
asks if I know what to do now
and I tell your hands
no
show me again.