The Future; Julio Cortazar

And I know full well you won't be there.
You won't be in the street, in the hum that buzzes
from the arc lamps at night, nor in the gesture
of selecting from the menu, nor in the smile
that lightens people packed into the subway,
nor in the borrowed books, nor in the see-you-tomorrow.

You won't be in my dreams,
in my words' first destination,
nor will you be in a telephone number
or in the color of a pair of gloves or a blouse.
I'll get angry, love, without it being on account of you,
and I'll buy chocolates but not for you,
I'll stop at the corner you'll never come to,
and I'll say the words that are said
and I'll eat the things that are eaten
and I'll dream the dreams that are dreamed
and I know full well you won't be there,
nor here inside, in the prison where I still hold you,
nor there outside, in this river of streets and bridges.

You won't be there at all, you won't even be a memory,
and when I think of you I'll be thinking a thought
that's obscurely trying to recall you.

My Eyes Flew Open, But the Dark Was All To See

You swept through the pantry,
upset the bottles and canisters,
the boxes and jars alike.
You threw it all on the tiled floor,
stirred it about and mashed it to a powder
so fine and sickly-looking no dog would touch it.

It's been two months, you've fed me
a strict diet of salt and iron
washed down with whiskey and midnights;
opening my mouth to fill a belly
used to sugars and processed meats.
You opened my mouth, and blinded my eyes,
purring "It's my heart, it's my heart I'm feeding you,
it's my heart you taste."

And though tastebuds detected something sick,
something dirty, a poison unnameable,
I swallowed out of hunger,
out of starvation.

For it was good at first, the proteins
and the flavor of your tears
had not quite touched my tongue.
But, oh darling, we've reached something rotten,
some blackness of decay.

I don't know what lie she fed you
that such cruelty should come to taste.
I shut my lips, you wrench them apart,
and rust covers all.
I have long known what fear is made of,
it is the first recipe a girl learns,
all oxidized blood and long lost embalmed loves
washed down with gin and sharp movements.

Shall I sputter and spit you out
or shall I keep to swallow,
digest the wretched wreck under the surface
only to vomit back a purity for you?

In a heat like this, only the winter can know.
It is February, there is nothing to eat but you and me
and only the winter can know.

You Played a Show, I Danced with Strangers

The little hairs on your lips
tickle in pink purple kiss
the cold of the car is so taut and numbing
the kiss is the only decent distraction from the terrible slow prog rock on the radio

but I like the way your arms are around me in the 3 a.m. dark
I like the way your face feels underneath my thumb
rough and kind
sinking me further and further into a blue morning
of breathlessness and reckless causing tongue texture

I like your skin.
It's smooth and warm
so unlike my alabaster everything

so unlike me.

Breakfast Fantasy

Good morning, America, you're killing me.
Slowly
but surely with fat baby croissants
steaming with butter
and sumptuous chocolate coffees doused in
cinnaminiman.
But this cafe and surburban housewives
they seem sweet but the topic of conversation is
Laundry and cleaning toilets with Borax for Christmas
and husbands leaving million dollar jobs
for multi-million dollar jobs in the darkest heart
of Wall Street.

I cringe with the German woman behind the counter
these women make me feel somehow constrained
as if I need to tear off my careful brass button vest and
button to the collar chirt
drop trou and run run naked in my Electric Blue lacey underthings
down these quaint suburban streets
delivering a heart attack! massive! to all the persons I can touch
to try perhaps
and free them of the fragile cages holding in all that empassioned fever
love tempered with iron
sing sing they'll sing on cobblestones and fuck on curbs
dance raspberries in the town square fountain
shouting
Who was that girl who was that amazing girl and
woo! did you see the color of that lace
what a dame
what a dame
while I slipped behind back into the cafe with the old German woman
she winks my conspiracy and makes me
another espresso
for free.

You Broke Up With New York For a Reason; This is the Future and it Sucks

You belong where the crows replace the pigeons
and boys in light pants wear flannel to
cover up their scars
and stich wide mouthed seam to sew
their religion on.

Hip stitch, one, two
let me come and dance with you,
Box step, three, four,
no one's gonna love you more
than these overgrown trees dripping with moss
and tangled hedges in the twilight,
breaking onto docks
to wet your feet
and taste the salt we've come from.

And each of us, in time, will return
to this little place,
a third of our souls,
and keep, keep cracking;
I'll be the glue that holds you together,
I'll be your heart,
beat for you one and two once more,
I'll be.

For Kelly, With Beer

You are my beer,
sitting pretty Ruby in my glass
and you and I
and you and I.

You call when the twilight winds down,
winds the clock down,
and on my coat;
I find you a stain I can live with,
sprawled across my sheets
and oh, oh,
how I love each piece of breath
your mouth releases.

Don't change your name tonight,
don't change your face on me.
Let those curls wrap around my digits,
let me have cinnamon moments
kept in giftwrapped cellophane.

Stay through this sunrise
and I'll keep you in espresso
if you promise to wander this peach again,
if you promise the air stays clean.

You Still My Number One

This town is technicolor celluloid
knee-brown boots breaking onto docks
to catch the end of the rainbow
disappearing ts tail into the Sound.
This town is napalm,
but this time is the aftermath
of burning hearts, a bluff
and a peace misunderstood.

My head is full of wine and weary wisdom,
my throat scratched, parched
from screaming across mountain passes,
your name dangling from frostbitten fingers
icicles fallen from my knees.

And this snow is blinding in sunset
for red and purple and gold;
a summit is a summit is a tangle
of rosebushes with thorns out to here,
and a rhyming heart caught in brambles.

And we'll all fall away,
and we'll all fall away.

It's evolution and reconnaissance
a glass touch in the dark,
and your name home beside me,
warm beneath coals and tended
by something easier said than done.