you said last night you think I am magic.
& you have that inescapable purple in your aura,
pivoting like vonnegut’s wampeter, which is why
the animals are magnetically-drawn to you,
unlikely cult carp whisperer.we all eventually have to do psychic maintenance
so half-hour to midnight means walking
on elevated concrete roadside benches,
holding in hand that feeling of being sure
like lollipops in the mouth or stone bracelets,
like sitting crosslegged under the esplanade bridge.
someone but not me needs to paint
your bullock shoulders your nimble wrists
your inability to unplug from Real Life:
maybe it is because you want to be
a different height that you refuse to
allow short-circuits.
is this what they mean by industry?
binding your own wrists in neoprene cuffs,
you permit leather blindfolds that can’t cover the
quirk of your smirking mouth & your insistence
that your hard-on is good for at least something,
even if it is hanging dirty towels like
a criminal execution. your kisses are
a study in botany,
like things to be taken apart and examined
under bright lights and steel tweezers.
like the ball of your thumb is a thing
to be taken to heart.
even afterthoughts of you feel like
the uniform fuzz of carefully-shaved head,
firm touches, scented turquoise pineapple
crystalline and now I know
the sound of a three-hour telephone voice
is a tall glass of citrine, sea kelapa syrup
spread excruciating over the railwork system,
like a lapdance, like the fatigue carried in the
arched feet of someone who inhabits heels, like
trails of formic acid, like
busy, busy, busy.
I miss you
even when I am next to you,
you said,
and I took this as thundercloud omen,
storms wielding wet bargaining chips
but you’ve always loved finding the sublime
in the mundane and I’ve written so many
poems about marrying the divine and the
profane that we know we can find
both pedestrian and arcane in the
rain.
you said, I am afraid
we are only really good for each other in bed
but some good advice is do what you love.
stretch before dancing. and eat more broccoli
even if you don’t particularly like it. wax
lyrical about your mussels one more time.
buddy wakefield famous slam poet says
when you feel like stepping back from the mic,
step forward.
I am backing away very slowly now so
I don’t startle you. I am whispering to the carp
instead of teaching them foucault that it is
perfect to be afraid. that it is permitted to know
you are breathtaking in spite of yourself.
buddy says, stop fucking with the moon,
so I tell you, I’ll meet you on the green platform,
on the third floor, on the astral dimension
just above this one.
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