Years ago, as a child, I climbed the levee and made a hole in the air.
That’s where I will rest, but the gate is not wide enough.
Like my burial site, I am party-size.
would like to have danced with her,
to have slow-cooked to a slow song
in her sleek, toffee arms: her body
balanced between the Temptations’
five voices and me—a boy anointed
through her wispy hair. I am nowhere
to be found, neither in the foreground nor
background. Today I sit in this chair,
in the corner of my house, covered
with a poncho of blue flowers,
looking out at asphalt roads overflowing
with rain, fogging the glass. Along the road,
steam rises like blotchy fingerprints.
snow collecting
on the inside of the window
sill, trying to descend
the stairs silently
his eyelids like a moth’s fringed wings.
Arms flail against the Ninja Turtle sheet
and suddenly-long legs
race time.
unhunted. If “if” is the one word one is given with God
to explain how one survived.
It was the scent of a strange perfume,
from fallen cocoons, sticky sincerity
that made them flee.
Gilgamesh stopped wishing
for immortality,
for only in death could he be certain
of seeing his friend Enkidu again.