more things stay the same

1000

"and you cried all night. you've created a stream and it flows forever, that's made of dreams that didn't come true, and i'm sorry, there's nothing more that i can do. when we get together, take apart my fantasy, and we are done, we'll work on you. it's sweet, lie emotionless, staring at the ceiling, back turned up against the wall. my skin is clear and you can see what i'm thinking. i'm thinking hard about all the things i've been dreaming. i've been dreaming about you, and only you."

[ intrans. ] partly coincide in time :

you wanted to know but

i hadn’t (like money freckles

and paragraphs) thought

is what you wanted here

with wickedness

fixedness, this

is a flash flood

as normal as snow on

purple swells, gazelles

run, they run from this and

like a speck, spotting

a spirit it settles

pointedly on my nose

(like Eskimos)

--see? it’s sweet, it’s childish it’s

me saying, me saying

here if you want it, part

-time invisible, it’s your

batted eye, blind spot, no instrument

could say so much as that

had i said so much

as that, had meant

a part of that, like

that thing about the igloos, transience

like icycles, like Eskimos, tip

-toes, “overlapping”

just like we were going home.

look at us in our boots, my ankles

turned out. we were so drunk that day.

we were on chairs or one another’s backs

on the way to the rain that hid

who lost. we were better

than i thought, we were good.

what’s snow to california kids?

what’s snow to us?

i wish it crushed or muffled more

mistaken sound, or shadows

under eyes with a trying smile

because i was hiding from you.

these blankets will creep into puddles

and stain and flood and rush away

without her making it, even if you learn.

it will happen without my help.

leaves and rugby will return, a century

of acres of our bludgeoned mission.

later i will tell this story about winter grass,

bas coeur (the buried heart), a good view

of icicles, stars and the marking of the sacred

and the rooftops and the scared,

the crying in the bathroom

for the only immortality you and i may share.

be colder. it’s

melting faster than it sticks.