Lying amidst terra cotta

shards, in backyard rituals

we stared at a bleaching dot

of sun, hoped tanning might

remind us of no—bad—days. I told you

how planets aligned for each

kiss. Every act blossomed

geometry. Our bodies, snapshots

of touch and breath. With sore

hands and heatstroke fingers

caked in musky aloe, we

rearranged bits of baked

clay, a zodiac of decimated

house plants, rippling outward

We painted with redness from scratches

attempts to edit our narrative a bloodletting

Stepped into the cool liquid of Mnemosyne’s infinity pool

Fear of hell                clench of neglect

       constantly bullied                    unrequited anything

                     drug induced psychosis                           standardized depression

You peeled back my hair, whispered into empty skull

Maybe, we could use one another, to predict the outcome

I forced a frown, did a handstand stretching into substrate

becoming roots to your

branches as you branched

to my roots, building

a future from dabs

of pale flesh, scattered

hair and heaping cells,

brushstrokes of bacteria,

pinch of shame mixed with

solar dust and a bucketful of

ego. Wire. Bone. Paste.

Sundry buttons and triggers.

Unseen. Waiting for thoughtful

collisions. Of the universe. To tangle.

Our revolving knots. Together.

hallelujah

Are we poems                separated by pages?

Or  are                                             we                    alcoholics

Shattered handfuls of whiskey

kept our hands from shaking.

Bartenders churned wine into whatever

with cheers to wean us off whether or not.

Brief seditions crinkled on salt rimmed Caesars,

before biking back under moonshine to our Airbnb

who were they, standing pylons around our accident!

Dramatists—filmmakers—artists—voyeurs

Police taxi carried me to cryogenic freezing,

but I was released the next day on odd behaviour.

Poached pears would be just desserts between ports,

sailing home an odyssey ripe with wine dark delusion.

I remodeled the dinette with horse-piss sigils.

Their patina potency protected from hangovers.

But we still sought exorcisms to banish cravings.

Dancing across sticky linoleum, each step applauded.

When I dropped you mid tango,

je t’aime, you snored,

Amidst our blackouts, we swam deep seas,

anglerfish dangled lit lures of last calls.

Alike the anglers, I bit near your tail, dissolving

enzymes deconstructed the barrier between us

In the folds of mated flesh we permeated,

I became vital appendage, forever in vitro

Codependent survival, could not hold the message,

an empty bottle suggesting somewhere else.

Broken schools smouldered

in our minds, old rule books

bleached by light, were useless

Sometimes, I imagined we were Ginsberg

and Orlovski, sending postcard poetry to

each other on different sides of the planet.

Or Sappho and a lover, scintillating across rough lakes.

On a stone bridge, we stood around a blazing bonfire.

Amassed here                     artifacts collected

             from each fling               every distraction

                     wan indulgences              a mock divorce

We bundled nude drawings from art class

and burnt them at the stake, poured vats

of phantom exes oxidizing flames, roasted

“what if” encounters until a cloud of ash.

After it all turned ember, spectral

architecture arose, a ghost of relics

freed now into atmospheric gases

I wed the spirit of your mistakes to mine,

by pouring water into blackened carbon.

Stirring the muck with a stick,

I dragged symbols out of obscurity,

outlining the warm mess of difference

Fear became boring, and after respite

between choking, shrouds of steam from

spring showers quashed conflagrations

searing up from inside of our arabesques

Dancing. In between grey.

Billows. I touched. Your

eyelash. With curve. Of my.

Singing. To let in. Tomorrow