Italia

There is always a pattern behind the weaving-
it is the greatest metaphor I know to describe
Humanity. We order ourselves to project a certain
picture, but beneath, in secret, we are a mass of
shapes and colors and rude knots.

I have come to lay ice before the Latin sun. I know
not how I came by it, nor did I know that it was slowly
killing me until I arrived here. I hold it in my hands as it melts,
an offering and a sacrifice. I am tired of being always so cold.
The rivulets of water feel something like blood, staining the
terracotta tiles a darker shade of ruddy brown.

I sit down at a table of glass and sink my teeth deep
into the flesh of the reddest and biggest strawberry I have ever seen.
It explodes across my tongue, dripping down my chin and tastes almost
sour with joy, like perhaps this is a dream I may, at any moment
be arisen from. It slides slowly down my throat, and I do not awaken.
I begin again.

I am clothed, and walking up hills no man in his right mind should climb,
but in this moment, clothed as I am, I feel naked before the sun, and somehow ripening.
I hear the laughter of children and the sound of foreign tongues and I have never been
so convinced that we sing to each other every hour of every day, as we speak.
I have never felt this beautiful.

Race to Nowhere

Demons on my tail
Hissing and Spitting
Ripping and Tearing
At what might have
been a heart, once;
and Whining ‘cause
I’m running, finally.

Hundreds of pages
Thousands of letters
Of just words, words,
Words that mean nothing.

Floor; I may have hit
The gas too hard,
When those demons
Burned the image
Of your face in the morning
To the backs of my eyelids.

Faster, now, hundreds
Of miles of grey ribbon
Under my tires
And the wind rushing in
Is the first that I’ve breathed

In a very long time.
It smells of gasoline, combustible.

It fits the red and chrome
That’s my body, now.
We’re melded, one;
both just built to run.
Gotta feed those demons.
Love letters; I might be tossing
They fly: Peace, by piece.
I laugh, it’s a paper trail

The worst joke I’ve ever heard.
‘Cause you won’t find me.
I’m better than buried.
I’m eighty mph, with the top down.

Catch me, I dare you.

Gotta drown those demons.
No salty tears;
I’m an expensive whore, remember?
So champagne, for our anniversary.
It’s a seductive arc
Gold slide on the chrome
Beads pulling off the sides
Smooth, sure, and best-fast.

You should know
Glass is music on cement.

Maybe I’ll drown
In that blue, blue sky
I’d have to get there first, though.
Too bad V8’s don’t have wings.

One last sacrifice
Just to damn those demons
The hair you love long
That long slide of the softest silk
That rope. That binding.

Unraveled strands on the highway
The wind’s flirting with my neck.

I think he likes it.

City Limits. Nowhere.
Yes, it’s a town.
Glance in the rearview.
I think I’m gonna like it here.

Entreaty to a Faceless Lover

December:

Let’s be delicate together-speak only in

whispers made of glass that creaks if we open

our mouths too wide. Because we’re that fragile;

let’s muffle the sound of the questions that go

unanswered lately. Let’s play games with each

other’s fingertips-barely touching because

(you, I) we can’t be real- I’ll trace my name

on your skin and you’ll pretend not to notice.

You’ll pretend I’m used to being this

dangerous; used to weaving Hope on looms

of carved smoke. We won’t say it (out loud), but

somehow this night has tangled our sinew

together in pulsating knots that will break

come morning.

February:

I pass moments on frozen sidewalks where

the wind burns itself onto my cheeks- such

impudent things, out bare at such an hour-

and wonder if you remember afternoons

spent memorizing my face with your mouth.

Your mouth was much kinder to me, then.

In these moments on those sidewalks I let

Streetlamps braid shadows into my hair,

let the wind breathe for me, like you used to.

These flashbacks are not polite in public.

I stamp them with my heels into the muck

left by boot-soles on unwashed floors of trains

that take me home. Businessmen roar in my ears.

Old women creak. Babies sigh. Music blares.

More People. More unrelenting cement.

It is too quiet in my head without you.

The click-clack of souls drives me steadily insane.

August:

I wonder if the sun looks the same

on the other side of the world.

I think that I just miss you, lately.

That’s all.