one year

walking through
other people's
gardens, at night,
that's what i think of
when i think of us, happy,
holdings hands we
found ourselves in the
same dream

walking those gardens,
the sweet april earth is stuck
tracking around
the bottom of my
heart like dog shit
and oh green flora
in the dark
oh secret barbeques spilling
out from lit and unlit houses
oh the spring sweat
of a liberated woman,
and the first april
and the sunday nights of kissing you
and the private gardens at night
still singing, still humming
in me, like so many thoughtful
busy insects
in those leaves
because love is
the dissolution of
private
property

on blindness & weather [or, what's still there]

half of spring
is the sun on your face, tingling
and the sounds of people
awakening,
the light gritty buzz of a skateboard
on pavement
the voices of men working,
or birds squeaking
like eager doorknobs,
the world
opening

home, after sandy

In early-winter sunset, the soft light

is falling on the blue-grey water of the New York Harbor.
The boats are sleeping and self-sufficient,

and the Statue of Liberty is pale, green, glowing.
I'm about to land at LaGuardia airport,
I'm coming home,

and the beaches of New Jersey and Long Island 

are still dim, marked with seawater.
The outer-borough
apartment buildings, with their sandpaper roofs,
huddle in the November cold,

and the graveyards of Brooklyn and Queens

sprawl out in chill green,
in momentary light,
the grey gravestones
are smaller than tic-tacs,
in crooked rows
like dominos,
before careless hands.

thanksgiving, from a gypsy

"Be humble, for you are made of earth.
 Be noble, for you are made of stars." - Serbian proverb

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
  I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." - Galileo

I am trying to live
like a body in the sun
like an open feeling
that knows of night
but will not dwell

this is what I hope, for the end:
our bodies will scatter,
& we will touch old trees,
skim upon the terrifying sea,
we will be greener than the newest springleaf
wiser than a gray animal king,
happier than a clear cold river.

an invisible flock of bees
will gather us like pollen,
threading us together
which is to say
i will see you again,
blind and singing
we will be together