There was a halo
when I closed my eyes.
There was the bass line rumble
of the heart restarting
the old engine of destruction
rolled into the light once more.
There was a halo
when I closed my eyes
and it was chasing you
along the cliffs of the Baltic Sea
and singing sank around your neck
was a full-throated revelation
that only you and I could hear
and if I could hear you now
I would listen to your last words,
watch in wonder
transfixed
as the universe was written backwards
as the floor melted towards the sky
and be content.

There was a halo
that you took away
and it's been six years today
since I have seen the like.

My thoughts go with you
wherever you go
after all of this is gone.

A warm breeze rolls in off of the road
vultures and passers by discussing
how love along a long enough timeline
makes a thanatologist of dreamers
makes sand and steam
of earth and sea.

We become part of the conversation
by fractions of inches
and cracks in the sidewalk
we tell the story of longing
to the ground and the grinding
ceiling fan.

Every prompt I see says
"in three to five hundred words"
and sounds without shape
tumble from my lips
mumble off my fingertips
scatter
marbles
lost
and roll in off of the road
to carry your name on a palanquin
royal procession
cherished relic
of my heart.

I cannot contain your glory
cannot make a reliquary of this skin
cannot offer up any temple you would accept
except every prompt I see says
your name
endlessly,
makes me
ever a student in
a changing field of study.

When they set side by side
the words to unwind you
from the song inside the mist,
when they can name the notes,
describe in detail
the frequency below your bones,
I hope they write it down,
in years and years of copperplate
thousands of pages
perfect and brittle and unmanageable
make a reliquary of my longing.
I hope there is something at the end of this
to give shape to all our struggle,
meaning to all the moments
where we empty handed
lay alone and awake.

I could always hear you
above the stuttering, shuffling crowd.
And I could always hear you
behind the back of my hand
sharp breath and roaring smile
and I could always hear you
again
if I had my way.

The grass will grow between us.
The sun and moon
have ended their shooting war
in favor of
disinformation and disarray.
The grass will grow between us.
The winters grow shorter
the spring more like summer
and always
the future less and less
like a sea of possibility
and more like a drowning pool
a scrying place
television
for an executioner.
The grass will grow between us.
You and I are a million missed chances
the back of your neck
as seen from above
and hovering over a keyboard,
somebody else's family,
decades gone by or going
all of these just out of reach
and thrilling
remain tenebrous
upon consideration.
The grass will grow between us.
Cool logic,
cooling blood,
the yoke of age
and one day silence
save for children playing
where the grass will grow between us.

Your heart bursts with birds and candlelight
and that murder goes on forever
a sea of feathers, a flock of wishes
what is scraped from the bottom of the well
has aged like fine wine
has hardened like your arteries
is weirdly perfect and terminal.
Your heart bursts with birds and
songs gone unheard and
fading from memory
feels like dreaming in reverse --
you watch all the colors wash away.
You watch the sun rise up
to swallow the stars.
You watch for signs pointing to tomorrow
and becoming your own lighthouse
cast a wide arm
sweep aside the sailors
try to pull her in again.
Sailors, astronomers, kings
have all wished
for a swelling sea of birds.

Five years and
five years on it's all
just hand after hand
full of restlessness.
Signals slide like
subway cars
along my bones and
take their toll,
all years just a ridership
bound for nowhere
and nothing
and null.
If I cannot conjure you by name
if I cannot call you from the shadows
if I cannot be heard
above the grinding, sparking rails
then I will find some way
to give your song to the starlight instead.
One day when you hear it
subliminal beneath the loudspeaker buzz
you will slide your hand into mine
and say goodbye to saying goodbye.
We did not arrive here together
but somehow, by accident,
we shall so depart.

All our heart shaped boxes
piled by the curb
rain sodden and wrecked,
all these years of 
baggage,
caked with grime
but bearing sprouts
between corrugation and chaos
are beautiful.
What you never say to me
is as beautiful
as what your silence sings.
There is no right answer,
I know,
but let's pretend there is
and let's set down at the curb
what burdens we've carried
and rest
in each other's arms
until the sprouts and vines
make gardens of our aging
make forests
of our remains.

You could be the edge of night
the card that cuts the dusk
and shuffles back the dawn.
You could be the stereo separation
the bass chasing melodic noise
the ritual urge to tap out lifelines
long leads on dance floors and
rain slick cement.
You could be
swaddled in silk and
pale blue ribbon and
in any compromising position
would look
angelic
in the moonlight
enticing
in the sun.

The fine hairs on the back of your neck
like wheat in the wind
waving from Elysium
an old and elusive myth
a song stuck in my throat
for the rest of my life --
worth the world's weight in gold
worth a lifetime of losing out
worth waking up forever again without you.
Sometimes I am drained by dreams of you,
drowned by your passing
and sometimes lifted up
dragged from the shoals
and made monumental
by the glow and the afterglow
of who you were
and what you are now.

The sunset was handing out crowns
and there you were
every smile a coronation.
We stand on ceremony
to make memory less awkward
but beneath the blurring vision
and graying hairs
we are ablaze,
long horizons
drinking the closest star
dry
gallons and gallons
of wish-I-mays
sparkling in our throats.
That you would read me still
is cause for celebration
and that I endlessly write
is just the sunset
doting and dutiful,
putting all of us in our place,
all of us working as one.

The rain writes your name
in miniature and sterling
and the Earth is bowed back
and aching
where it waits for you
to land.

We cannot wash our hands
of these wings
or what we want
but we can agree
on a neutral head of a pin
where we can talk
about my fingers
on your collarbone
your fingers
on my neck.

We have reduced our essence
to test tubes and tolerances
bard life by the bottle
the steady machinery of
dreaming forbidden things,
lullabies for Brielle,
our favorite songs heard
sideways and backwards,
sung with great gusto
by modernity's casual nihilism.
We are running an experiment
through the veins of three therapists
(because shock and awe, baby!)
and what comes out of the meat grinder
is fatter than before
but rich in protein
even if it's lacking in content.
We are a pearl hidden in the cheek
like a sugar cube sucking tea time candyland,
the fantasy of friendships of old
in the trappings of the here and now
and we are vivid.

I will tell you a secret, my love:
I was never ambitious
but only because my ambitions
could not be seen
by the priest or the proctor.
What I wanted was me, and mine,
and in my heart
there is a great you-shaped hole
and I am piling page after page
into the space,
on each written
"the mouth that is silent
can still be heard
if you want it badly
enough."