I.

the cards are splayed out on the wrought

iron table, a hand of dusk,

diamonds wink into view, darkening

sky replacing the warmth growing

clovers beneath our feet, spades

are not needed, we let wilderness

reign, our backyard an unkempt

sprawl of weeds, our hearts

aging backwards and forwards

drawing and drawing and drawing

in rounds.

II.

april birdsong would envy

the early morning greeting,

growing louder in fits

of laughter—no sweet

lark could sing my joy

more harmoniously than warm

sun yawning over us, deliriously

calling to one another,

good morning, denver, as we careen

to our black coffee, spilling

over the lip—it is early

and we are dancing

back to the front porch hit

by a beam of golden morning

and we call to one another

refracted through jokes and photos,

i love you both.

III.

the sun is cleaving itself into a crescent

today, and we dressed for the part.

the celestial arrangement matters little

in the face of little meteorites, a collection

of us drawn to one spot in the grass,

we are dusting off the star matter

donning our glasses, and staring

at the sun. unearthly grey

light blankets the congregation,

we are but one small circle

of companions, in a vast

field of revelers, a subtle

sublimity reigns for a moment,

and then the joy returns

we don’t leave one another until

well after the sun is whole,

before we part, a promise

is forged in moonstone.

after twenty years, we meet

again, just to watch the sky

together.

IV.

closer to heaven, we spin

tales of our days, the lore

of our city is woven

on a rooftop off downing street

here we thread our story

through the needle, stitch

together a spring silk until

we are shrouded

in shimmering fabric composed

of each moment of each day

of being girls together—

the hue is beyond belief.

we dye each night

new strands the color

of our laughter bright

warm in the sun setting against

red brick, black of the cat’s head

peeping from the window,

the rubbery green of fresh

leaves, and a gentler shade

for her eyes, silver

cigarette smoke, blossoming

purple, petals scattering across grey

grating tiles, midnight indigo

silhouettes powerlines

in the alley and the skyline against

the color of our profundity, palest

blue we gaze to, day’s dying,

knotting a loose thread—and we’ve done it,

woven ourselves together,

forever our stories entwined,

care of spring nights spent

sitting on the roof, talking

about our everythings and nothings

at once.

it is always the sky, is it not?

the football stadium shrouded

in grandeur, yes, and fog.

yet as the freeway swallowed

the silver bullet i shot

down the ramp, convalescing

in the vein, cars

speeding past, i can only take

in one breath, one

endless, unfathoming breath

the northern lights sitting

 pink and heavy right here, right

atop my head, big beach

umbrella propped and shading

a magenta smudge, a chemical

spill, comic deep

fuchsia vaporizing, soaking

or just plain

aurora borealis. green to my right,

swathed over the city, i am reverent

with awe, i bolt

back to the barrel

of the freeway, rumble

to a jutting finger, small

empty stretch of road

gasping gasping gasping

the aurora borealis is here.

tinny music winds down,

stadium light flickers out.

the cloud lays low, dragging

its belly across the city,

pink stain is bleached swift,

light pollution mocks

unending belief in the natural

ephemeral gods

governing night drenched city-

scape skyline, giving no thought

to where it blooms thick

hearty blushing foliage comprised

in dew, industrial

sectors donned in rose

the trainlines sew tracks set

in new shades, unearthly beauty allotted

i can believe in those gods

blessing with a kiss of phenomenon

natural, no, this time

a stadium sung pollution, but

i stayed rosy flushed

with the eager aura of belief.

my words have ceased

to matter. there is a void

in the pit of my heart,

the one i filled with you,

you, my words, my poetry

my semblance

of romance. you, young and tired

girl fitfully alone, writing

and writing and writing

on the unnamable

emotions, the torrential inked

downpour of pent-

up oblivion, you once called

love. a lying thing

it was, and my ceaseless

attempts to find

the source,

to name it, bring it into life:

one,

my seeking, scrounging

scrapped together romanticism,

i believed was for another,

to piece together a whorl

of moments and call it

by the name affection,

love. two,

i had to. no blame can be laid

on the sweet

young thing that wrote and wrote and wrote

on the newfound sentiment,

the coming-of-age, flickering,

fleeting moments because

i wanted them, so

i made them real, shaped

from the clay of my persistence, shaped

like neat letters on white expanses, shaped

like desire made physical,

i existed in the liminal space

of wanting and

having, so, three—

that thing i looked for,

that thing i materialized in mock

flesh and blood, writing

to make it stick, romance

manifest, yes,

it was skin, blood, bone,

it spoke and thought and hurt

it loved me.

a practice in myself,

the feeling was always there,

i wrote on love

because i had it

for my own being, though a phantasm

it seemed at the time, i chose

another specter to tie

the black knotted

thread of poetry

to, an apparition in the fullest

sense, vapor cannot be leashed.

the physical

love passed from my heart

to my mind, to my hand,

and i wrote.

it once looked like:

nights, reverent solitude.

days, the driving force

of ether, material

to pick apart, the thin

skin of a newspaper

shredded to snow,

and glued whole

in despair, the words becoming

depth because i chose

to puzzle them fixed

back into meaning, because

i chose to exist

in fragments

of love and need and care

instead of this:

delving into fresh found

sonically in the wind burrowing

the palms of the trees in the gutters

kneaded with rainwater and grit

they are kind and lend their hands

to my happiness, carpeting my walk

they promise newness, blustering

a funeral procession for all

that felt alive, when it was not—

winter takes the hillcrest,

climbing swiftly, puffing frozen

breath and grinning down, soft

in knowing its charade

of death and cold and dark

is the rebirth, the love potion

to regrow my sentiment.

me and the storm together begrudged

her leaving, the night she was set

to depart punctuated sublimely

by rockets of ice bulleting

suddenly, ceaselessly, even

midnight on her front porch,

tear-stained but melding

with a dark, unforgiving

deluge, fitting, she trailed

behind her a cliché, though

i’d never known her

to be fond of such banality,

living so brashly her, as she does.

bellowing grief, the storm rages

on, but i tell it to clear, let her go,

we had five years, and the grit

of her new home is waiting

in glimmering stained

sidewalk gossamers, homes

set stories high tight

together like hugging friends

reunited in streets familiar

from recounted tales, a dialed

description, she brings me closer

to the city along the wire.

in chills, i rest,

the momentary late night, dry eyed

song that spills boundless

realities shrinks my world to

a burr, i can rest in the spokes and spores

of that seed.

if angels exist, so can i.

yet here i am, and i can’t

comprehend a world

where i feel every molecule

of existence on my tongue, sugar crystals

to my thumbprints, the pores of my skin

licking up the paint, the halogens, the salt

some human brain with human ears

that muddle, humble and sweat in an effort

to filter the terror and

concentrate my efforts on the tangible, the angels,

the drawstrings, the knuckle joints the blankets

and windowscreens, the broken bottle on my kitchen floor,

the ovengrease and coffee grounds, the unwashed hair, july’s sweet

breath and the pollen swathed on soft fibers,

the tangles, and the stars painted on the walls, the nightgowns,

the blisters, the crabgrass, the new year, the white spots scarring my mind,

the skeletons under our feet in the park,

the green kitchen table, the green velvet blanket,

the yard, only dirt, the fog machine to cloak our incessant

dancing, winter’s bittersweet grasp, and

the phosphorous burn of life constantly passing before

my eyes as though i’m already there,

i’m already gone, and i’m tripping and 

i’m choking

on the gnarled and hardened roots

of every moment

of every day that i had been around to soak

in the blurred pain of happiness, exactly

what death

must feel like.