Outside

Firework gun-pocks

We lay inside on your

Mattress touching

In silence entwined

Entropic entangled

I wanted to hold those

Distant bursts of light in

The palm of my hand

Press them together so here

We could explode

Green and gold

No watchers

Pulp and Circumstance

Summer arrived. What

I wanted more

than anything was

lemonade. Hands grinding

halved fruit onto

that vaulted star,

I wrung a 

cup for you

before your flight.

Left behind was

sticky pulp, stink

on my fingers,

and rind beneath

my nails. Mixing

unequal parts simple

syrup and citrus,

I added sugar

to taste, desperate

not to erase

your bitter tang.

"September Night, Hackney"

What happened that night

we met Simon at the hookah bar?

Brick Lane wound like a haze

through to Hackney -

bottles of beer out back,

cool air and the dangling

Distant sound of voices

floating into cricket skies

Waking up to your glare,

to dry smooth skin,

London was a new fruit

I bit into with relish

reduced to a memory

now of the sweet taste

of Dr. Strangelove at 5 A.M.

and the dull ache of wanting it to end

"Alone Together"

The night we were alone together

We asked the moon to break the bread;

The two of us yapped, as black as dogs.

I couldn't find the words to tell you:

Talking is feeling for the emotionally inept.

I never liked your damned moon,

Its error driving men to howling

And shining through window blind slats.

You lay there painted like a zebra poised 

For prison, its very crime its ostentation.

We crossed the bridge we burnt behind us;

Look back and even songs won't save us.

Take my hand; don't speak.

Listen for the scraping of tinder:

The sound we make burning together.