when all the analogies run dry
and there is only the empty space in the bed
and suddenly too much time in the day
(these things are facts):
when all the metaphors refuse to write
a bigger picture than the one
framed of my face,
don't listen to the hissing of the music
and the whisper of traffic in the streets.
you can't come back,
there is only emptiness to be had
and there is no return to full warmth.

like a sigh in the night
the hem of your coat against the sidewalk,
a brush lighter than fingertips
when you think i'm asleep.
noiseless night
getting up toe to toe with the moon,
open to the harvest spotlight
and sneaking creeping slithering
the only sound
is the final catch of the lock, my breath.
the choke rises in my neck
threatening the larynx, the cords
that pull me all together to force out
just a handful of tumbled words:
where do you go,
when you cannot be still on these nights?
you crouch on streetcorners,
light up cloves in doorways blacker than black,
the fire a pinprick of singularity
a light offering no path
no tunnel, no hope, no solidarity.
the grey panic of waking
to realize that you are gone:
where do you go,
what dreams are you walking without me?

on beaches where waves roll in sibilant on the sand
or rooftops where moonlight glistens on miles of land
i'm pressing through shadows, i'm slipping through doors
i'm finding the crossings from city to shore

when we're young we sing novels, walk stories, rent plays
and assume they'll stay with us through nights and long days
in age dramas leave us, comedies will die laughing
and the walks and the songs and the spaces are lacking

so i'm climbing stairwells and swinging through alleys
i'm circling tall mountains and flooding dry valleys
to find the one source where the phrases are fresh,
to bind words to my heart and rend paragraphs with flesh.

forget bile, forget chance, forget fear,
forget all the promises you made and thought
you were capable of keeping—
forget clocks on walls that are telling you
there's no time, there's no time—
forget your mother's sense and your father's shame
and all the friends who forget you now—
forget age, forget money, forgo physicality
and take to the streets with your rage
to arm your brothers.
in words we make new memories, new scenes
that can be remembered and held close,
to keep us strong when we are weak.
new memories to replace the old,
new ideas to help us forget
that we are cold and hungry and oh so young,
to help us forget that we are poor
and lack means of power or force.
remember now
all the faces that came before you,
the struggles in delis and grape fields,
remember now that fate is optional
but the future looms
and brings whatever you brought to the table,
be it reason or weapons or tears.
forget the acid that rises in your chest
and forget how blue are bruises:
let action be your mantle
and break the crown into the hands of the people.

i am not an animal because
i hope, i dream, i create, i predict.
i am sentient:
and in perceiving all the wrongs that are done,
mammalian instinct rises.
there is no work, no food, no warmth
so this winter,
it's time to hibernate.
in the power of subjective consciousness
there is no rescue,
and imagination serves only
to tantalize:
what is it to have promise?
i eat narratives for breakfast,
feast on lies from men whose generation
fought a war and were rewarded.
my generation
wages war for their morals,
fought for resources we can't obtain.
our reward
is to hide like animals
deep in burrows,
seeking tunnels darker and safer
to live out the winter.

"the dirt, you know? how can you not miss the dirt?
the grime of it, like one of those
expensive sugar rubs you can buy at a spa,
the way it climbs up your feet and into your shoes."
on streets named for states the little mice walk
and seek, and stray, and sin gently
against the racing-stripe background.
"the smell, too, so often urine, so often sweat,
because with all the life pressed together here
how can there not be a little excrement around the edges?"
on little mouse feet they rustle towards stairs,
or rumble towards alien doorways to seek a fight
or start a war, or ask someone for spare change.
"and the noise, all these cars, the buses
grumbling up the hill, especially on cathedral,
and the sirens of all the cops, they're all cops,
did you see the motorcade with all the cops?"
the whiskers twitch with single-mindedness
for a chance at food or employment,
the naked little tail belying irritation and impatience
with the whole system and its lack of cheese.
"but i think what i'd miss most
would be the display here, the show we put on,
how public everything can be and still no one
can tell you the whole story."

once
you and i
(a chapter, a story)
were carving a path
at night
we rang bold, singing, precious.
like a wine glass
full of blood-red merlot
and held to the firelight--
and once
smashed,
rebel rubble on the blacktop,
glass shards to pick
out of tender feet.
inarticulate
and full of words
i cast out
(a bet, a lifeline)
for purchase.
i am far from pacified.