for rosie, a run-on sentence

the sky bursting with light, a forest burning down, the rain like a sigh, planes writing in the blue, ten thousand daffodils, a single letter in the mailbox, watermelon, driving all night, sleeping under the oak, all that laughter that went un-laughed, swimming in the river, the way summer feels inside my skin, how every tiny little piece of me scrunches up and buzzes like my body is a radio playing classic rock at top volume and i am running as fast as my lungs will take me and it's the way the ocean feels, touching so much at once, and it is blink, breathe, kiss and all those little pieces strung together, and me trying to stretch myself bigger to contain it all, to fall on my knees, to be planted in the soil, it is tiny explosions in my chest and sea turtles in my belly, and i don't think i can take it, like the stitches holding it all together will come undone, and my chest is a hot air balloon, and it is just so much, and i think i am a falling bridge, but there are arms to catch me, and somehow i am picked up and polished and it all looks different and i lay my head on a pillow and just like that, i am new again.

i like the sound your voice makes, i like the way you feel.  yes.

a quilt shaped like your hands

telephone poles are a city's way of trying to touch the sky.  the artery is thick, it moves like traffic, there are snakes in the blood, the ceiling inside the vein is painted like apples, it makes a sound similar to gravel.  what i am trying to do is make sense.  there will be twin ghosts sleeping inside my feet tonight.  at the edge of heaven, there are thirteen children playing a game that seems like the burning dreams of a forest that holds shadows inside its wood.  they sit in a circle all day long, as trains go by.  the ground they sit upon is feverish.  there is a swirling.  mockingbirds watch them.  their laughter rings like gravity.  they will never stop.

a couch on the freeway

when it plays, you will hear it.  the molecules that make up your body will spin.  the room will turn into a hurricane of walls around you.  there are archers with flaming arrows behind the 7-11.  the leather armchair in the front room has turned into a time machine again.  when you lay down in your bed, your body keeps catching on fire.  a black lincoln continental is selling acorns from suicide doors.  i don't trust it.  the porch light in my chest has a burned out bulb.  we are born with gravity ringing in our ears.  what can i say about the night?  your wrist tastes like flying.  your collar bone feels like silence.  the streets have filled up with gasoline.  all it would take is a single match.  

that aching heartbeat that stays with you through all of it

i have taught myself to sit still on park benches and watch the city turn purple around me, it is the only way to see the holes where you can crawl into someone else's life.  we move through a fluid more soluble than water.  it can be picked up, touched, kissed, moved and spun around.  but you can only catch glimpses of it.  there are petunias growing in a garden somewhere, and a mandolin sitting by the window, and smiles aimed like lasers.  to the east, the desert is sighing.  and winter is beginning to hiccup.  i am watching people walk home from work.  some of us are eating hamburgers and some of us are forgetting to breathe.  we get stumbling drunk, we make enough money to eat somehow (and sometimes not), we talk to old friends in the street, children come from our wombs, we do what we can, buses take us places, we read the newspaper, other people sell us shoes, we register for library cards, elementary schools, elections, our shopping carts fill up, we make friends, sex drives us crazy, we do things we can't take back, music creeps into our bodies and stays, we touch each other, houses hold us, we close our eyes and listen to the hum of the train, we lay in bed late some mornings, boats move beneath our feet, we teach each other what we know, dreams haunt us, we read books, grocery stores overwhelm us, we get mad at our parents, moments move us to tears, we see beauty in things we never expected, we let ourselves fall in love, people we care about die, we try to be good, all we are is ten hundred billion freeze frames set side by side, jumping like frogs, and nestling into each other, because nothing else is worth doing.

a memory

i remember eating peach pie on the patio of a highway cafe, and watching the rain fall on a roadside farm with my old true love, while she drank de-caffinated tea and told me about Russia and her fiancé,  and we tried to pretend we hadn't turned each other's worlds upside down.  i remember feeling vaguely sick, and thinking i had eaten too much pie.  i told her i had never seen a cornfield, and she, being her same old enthusiastic self took me to her favorite one and ran off in the corn.  when i caught her, and grabbed her, it was the first time we had really touched in years, and i should have kissed her, but didn't.  instead we walked back to the car, dragging the way we felt behind us like the bodies of heavy kitchen appliances, not realizing how big the sky was above us.  in retrospect, it wasn't the pie that made my stomach hurt.

for link (the beginning)

it was a blurry day filled with heaviness, like we all walked around carrying boxes filled with pianos.  the sky seemed a bit shaky.  none of us knew where we were going to end up.  (we still don't).  i saw you beneath the trees.  i didn't know you then.  but we shook hands.  it was good.  (it still is).

piano fingers on a sleeping airplane

if i was sleeping beneath a pine tree tonight, i would wake up and smile at the stars for a second, before falling back to sleep.  i wouldn't be thinking about anything that i am thinking about right now.  sometimes the people just don't fill up right.  and 20 feet to the north different things are happening.  like dancing, or love.  tonight my ribs felt like an empty bird cage, and i wanted to curl around them like it was all going to be okay, because it is, it will be.  it feels good to talk about serious stuff and to kiss you on the wrist.  that is the god's honest.