sugar

paris was old architecture.


--


songs for the sailors, songs
for the tourists-- nothing, and
nothing. the light
in the evenings makes me sad, she said.
and i kissed her. i kissed
her, and she tasted of clementines,
and tea, drunk by the ocean.
and i wanted to take her
home, make her fish,
strip the pale pink flesh from
the bones, and feed her,
lemons, & summer butter--
and i kissed her-- promised

her roses, rosy and delicate as her cheeks or
pale as sand & cream, and she laughed
at me. and i knew 
it to be bitter. so i did not want
to cook her fish. i did not
want to lay her on my bed,
i did not want to kiss her,
as so sweetly.

and she tasted my cigarettes,
and she tasted my coffee
gone black and cold,
and she kissed me, and
she kissed me, and i could
taste the drift & ebb;
waves rescinding into colder water.
and she walked away.
her footprints imprinted
to the ocean. i did not
count them, and i did not follow her.

something blue

Sometimes, when you fall in love,
you wake up on your unmade bed
& bare mattress,
curled up
& cold
on soft bags of clean laundry.
The pale morning light lingers.

The only scent in the room, is yours
& the beach,
which is where you'll drift to again.
The ocean & the sky are the same today.
Mermaid souls,
ebbing foam,
are clouds today:
sweet, white,
& quick to dissipate.

There's some joy to wading & swimming alone.
Summer is lovely.

There was something you forgot, as a child, about solitude.

The sky,
sleepy, and full,
of the occasional, distant, passing planes,
will always be your lover.
Sheets of paper,
bright and rectangular,
will always be your lover.

The bed,
which you have pushed against your window,
and have piled high
with pillows, will always be
the constant sandbox
for your girl body.

As a child, you did not think much, but you listened,
to the song
of the wind & cerulean,
and the rattling car drifting down your street,
past your house.

Your heart
knew the happiness of counting things that flew.
Your body
fit the square frame of your windows.
Little, round, black chimneys
of the houses across the street, were wonderful
on your tippy toes.

And now, you live elsewhere.