1. I am walking a tightrope
    between here and forever
    to watch you tend roses.

2. I should have slept
    before the hurricane.
    I was twisting wrought iron
    into silver.
    You are so very loved.

3. He made a monument
    to sorrow and relief
    in the creaking timbers.
    With my bare fingers
    I felt songs in the elegiac blue.

4. Oh, little savior of Tlaxcala,
    I remember your sad eyes.
    Spend yourself forward, into the desert:
    tomorrow has seen you first.

5. Do you remember the last night?
    Streetlights painted slatted stripes
    on four naked shoulders
    and an endtable.

6. I am afraid of losing you.
    that you should go running
    gazelle-like, across savannah.
    You would write to an empty letterbox.
    I would read from far away,
    tragedy through a telescope.

7. There is nothing beyond you.
    Tongues trill empty air into
    sounds thicker than ligaments and bone.
    I lie under, watching life float around me.


I traveled without a suitcase.
Hither and yon, I held hope like a rosary
in prayerful hands.