we should by now
have created a much stronger vessel
for the art, the love, the passions, the anxiety,
the emotions and the creativity of the body
and the mind--
the soul is such a weak mold,
the clay from the bottom of the pit,
a lump of molten sand that refuses to become glass.
we should by now
have invented a stronger bowl,
an urn of iron or bronze or quartz,
a valley for the body's belongings and
the mind's wanderings.
the cupped hands of the soul
cannot contain the ache of absolute exhaustion,
crack at the mere mention of rest.

more than the dreaming, i miss the dream:
the physicality of an idea,
once enabled by action, is impossible to deny.
as inevitable as stomach bile
the dream of you retched out of my mouth,
bypassing the heart entirely.
in tasting iron,
i realized that the tip of my tongue
had no words but also no dream,
that what was dredged up
by your anger and your atmosphere
was not the dream
but only the aborted act of dreaming.
so i seek still the dream,
which was lost somewhere along the way:
i am only tinder
for its bright flame,
a brittle branch for kindling.

intensive exploration
of the line between hope and desperation:
when does it become foolish
to want something this badly?
so what if it is an ideal, an impossibility,
implausible at best and
a broken extension of a broken-hearted system:
circulatory, nervous, chronic.
each night another opportunity
to prove myself beneath your hands,
that i am more than a clay
and more than the soil and sea and air are,
a granite foundation, bedrock basalt.
impossibility is too easy
when you range wide as you do;
implausible is necessary, when your feet
find themselves so infrequently at my door.

in a valley, near a lake,
she's sobbing like her heart will break
while in the lake, on a boat,
he's hoarse and feels his cold heart choke.
a sun might rise, arc in the sky,
to light the land that's warm and dry
and break the clouds, lithe and grey,
which threaten to keep peace away.
tears might dry, on the shore,
if she could burn with hope once more
while in the lake, moving tides,
his strength might lift her ember eyes.

the snow spreads out over the dirty ground,
a sparkling carpet of tread marks
waiting for the impression of your feet--
are they following mine, are you coming at all?
i have walked many miles for you
to get to this night, when your tracks are absent
and your voice is silent, and all your body
is gone, your influences lacking.
i suppose the future is lost, if you do not come;
if you do not come, the future will have to be built
again, brick by brick a building new
with different rooms and different intent.
looking back i can see my tracks in the snow:
a white sheet unbroken, except
for two little feet that shuffle forwards
into a future that might be terrifying,
will be terrifying, but glitters in the streetlights.

your love is gone, but there is heat
where once only the past would beat
between my ribs and in my eyes:
a future that both frees and ties.

the natives are all easily come
to a god whose fire breaks the numb:
a native fear is simply razed
to be replaced with nameless praise.

if job was old before his time,
if jonah met fate in the brine,
then i too take the stony walk
and learn to heed my harkening heart.

in the desert, in a barn,
i set up my own rocky cairn.
here lies the lost, the dead, the calm
not seeking or finding gilead's balm.

it's so inept to struggle with the
where-i-should-be, should i be
wanting the courtship and the sex and the bare feet
on cold kitchen floors in the morning,
when i am already yearning for the
sunday morning sunshine,
the depth of understanding that is years of love
and circles of families expanding--
should there be guilt for that,
or merely stress for lack of expansion?
the violence of post-adolescence
in this world, where there are so many passions
and cares and weights that wear:
an endless search for the median between
sugary cereals and varicose veins,
where do you and i
find each other, where do we begin
in the mornings and where do we end up
at night? there should be mourning,
there should be peace, there should be
an ability to let go, there should be.
there is only me, and
growing up turning into growing older,
and decisions that become weighted
but are valued as weightless.