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."