Always blissful
Always blissful in those clear-eyed years,
Grief was an unknown then.
We were gold in
In each other's orbit, we drank air.
We drank air.
That first time the rain ran down like
Silver needles.
Your wet umbrella left rivers on my painted gray floors.
Nervously you said 'Good afternoon'
When it was nearly night.
And so in that chilly, half-empty room
We found a way to live in our skins again.
Psychedelic, very pink
Carpets and sheets of
Paper flowers.
Ran down the damaged walls,
A delicious frosting as we rocked,
We rocked borrowed beds.

              we traveLed together just once,
                  to pAris, the very slowest
                route By train. heating
              hashish Until my palms went black.
             then a stRike. how to move?
 such speechless awe; Narbonne, earliest a.m.
the trees bloomed for Us. they danced and
              waved liMbs. dark laughed, light did,too.
Laburnum = pensive beauty

for other habits - the boys crooneD
                           ‘chocolAte’ in sleepy voices
                        close by tHe opera bar.
                      buckets of fLowers, porno mags,                     cages of canarIes. her one photo:kohl-eyed
               & he’s bent close, Alive.
Dahlia = instability

               was that aPartment in allston?
I only remember a dim, shUffling
                        tRam,
                    the sPring night
                        fLooding the drawn down windows
                  with scEnt,
your monkish mat on the fLoor
           & your generosIty as
                        fLocks of birds rose
            out of the heAt
  in my pelvis & flushed Chest.
Purple Lilac = first emotions of love

 her black hair shot white,Zebra style.
and wasn’t she so full of wIld
                         waNt for his he & her she?     
                john coltraNe’s
                  ‘my favorIte things’ over & over,
             her potter’s hAnds in both their dusty britches.
Zinnia = thoughts of absent friends