Sometimes
when I have my eyes closed
or my back turned
or I pretend I am sleeping
I cannot discern your voice
talking to the stranger’s.
*
I forget to say your name
at night
and then again in the morning.
I’ve forgotten my teeth
because of it
and the very tips of my fingers.
*
In this world
There are many
that want to love you
but cannot
for one reason
or many.
*
Someone famous revisits his work
It doesn’t matter what I tell you
The cat who was kind,
is not always so.
But it does matter
he wants you
to say that.
A cat is silent even as it strikes.
He wants to know
if you’ve ever known
anything.
Anything at all?
Snakes and cats have always been enemies.
He revisits his work
and sees only you in it.
He wants to know
what you’ve done with him
In what stomach have you stored his dreams?
*
When You are Gone, You are a Mystery
When you are gone
you are a mystery to me,
and I can’t imagine your hands
or your teeth,
or the curve of your arches.
From the Kingdom I write you
like Bolaño’s Barcelona Afternoons:
I write lots
I love you lots
I write you into some strange script
a martyr
a messenger
A stranger with eyes I do not meet.
From here in the Kingdom,
there are no vantage points
from which to see you better,
no tools or sights to bend you
to my perception.
From here in the kingdom
all I can do
is write these messages to you,
and after
I will shred them up
and cook them.
I will feed them to my plants,
I will put them in my pillowcases,
steep them in my tea.
I will have tried to live with them
as though they were you,
bursting from every corner of my life.
They will have spilled out of my drawers,
and begun to trickle from all of my faucets.
I will have tried to eat them, but found the taste
empty.
I will have tried to kiss them, or embrace them,
but, like you,
they do not belong to me.
Like you,
they have disappeared from the Kingdom.
_________
The above poems will appear in the upcoming chapbook: THREE GIRLS WHO LOVE TO HAVE FUN from Talking Book
