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.

Birthday Poem from 3

You are my apple sweet-baked with cheddar
in the back of the Dutch oven

You are the moon when nothing else
seems relevant or warmy

You are the pulsing soul
in the midst of an irresistable whimsy

You are eight-legged rainbow bandits
on chestnut rollerskates
and I am falling to the colors falling from those eyes

In your birthday wigwam, there are
shoes on the shelf
and all the while,
you shine like new confetti

And we're clutched in the thrust
of this four triangle linoleum
tightly wound and waiting

And all over the floor,
beer stains and crazy paper sleep
under your birthday shoes
and your toes that "meep!" for
your exciting day,
the day that makes all the windows
clench their fists and say
"Goddamnit, shes pretty."

Our girl,
the prettiest under purple light,
under the grey rain
and in the red Spanish dress;
driving home,
driving home.

A Taste No More

I had a dream in the back
of the car that night,
with your head pressed
softly to my breast,
had a dream where
you were something
more than fun
as your sleep wound
down and out of your mouth.

I wore a little white dress,
I had a dream
as your sleep wound down
and out of your mouth,
of daffodils and parasols,
pink in effervescence with
matching champagne and mary-janes,
and your breath a baby's upon my cheek
wound tender out of your mouth.

Of curls on ladies and hats on friends,
of cotton lace gloves, a garter.
and you so well-spent,
three words against my ears
wound caramel out of your mouth.

I had a dream,
awoke as you stirred,
owl-wide eyes anxious to return.
Gazing out the window
my feet on the dash,
I saw my dream echoed
across the Sound,
the stars and city lights indistinguishable.

And my breath leapt to meet
your breath,
steaming in the secrets
winding down and out of your mouth.

The Paper Moon

If ever my vernacular should fail me,
toss me aside like yesterday's garbage, I

want you to remember that every fixed moment I gave
allotted six years of masturbation material, perhaps one
silken pair of panties pressed sweetly to your thigh.

Ordinary girls never did it for you, this was whispered
nightly, a lullaby of falseities, nice in their flattery, but
lingering a taste to remember how many extraordinary
young ladies you knew; you hunted them,

and so did I.

Perhaps this is why perfection blossomed, perhaps
ancestry had something else to do with it, or
perhaps it was only the flash of an ankle,
entrancing that dance, but please dear, don't
rip apart looking for

meaning, you simply won't find it here.
opening mouths hungry for life, yes
or a head tilted towards a favored star but
not enough to a build a heart from scratch.

Emulsion

There are dreams in here
among the dust
that hiss like secrets,
quiet and ashamed,
ginger colored ashes
spread across the floor.

I remember we had
plans
for these spaces
a darkroom, a studio
and I clear electronics
from the stained ancient wood.
Airplane skeletons
and ghosts in the dark of the basement.

They said the storms would come
at night
they said the rain
would fall angelic
and grace the autumn blossoms.
And I hear the thunder rolling
long past midnight
from my wild haunted home.

Lugh

Gunfire on the rooftops,
the great oak of my childhood,
well climbed and growing old,
pours acorns as if this
will be her last season for children

Autumn falls from a
Northeastern summer that barely existed,
more storms than sun this year.

Far and away,
the seconds dragging
85 degree beach days
all into October until
the rain day comes
and 8 months begins

and I wait in harvest moonlight
for you to pour yourself
molasses over me,
thick and sweet,
something more tangible
than these 3 hours
and 3000 miles,

I wait in harvest moonlight
for your boots on the leaves
your laughter and the sound
of chopping wood,

each autumnal season
from now until the end,
but you already know,
darling boy,
you already know.