A Dream

Touch me again and let everyone 

Watch.

They are all only strangers. 

Muted and fading into the background of 

This.

This incredible love story that hasn’t been 

Written. 

We’re a painting, frozen in longing, your hand on my back, mine on your thigh, both of us full of breath but unable to

Breathe out. 

Against my skin. 

Move your hand around my waist and pull me nearer. 

Let there be another touch, and another, and another. 

Let there be a spectacle of love and lust and adoration and let them all 

Watch.

Lost in music

My fingers tear across the hard brass strings.
They ache to find the right note
the right chord
to trigger my memory.
I found you once in a diminished B 7
but you vanished and moved on
and I’ve been playing ever since.
And what if you’re a melody,
Lost in a pattern in these goddamned frets.
Then I’ll learn to write songs
like I learned to play guitar.
I’ll find you, I swear,
and I’ll play you until I fall asleep.
I’ll play you until I bleed.
I’ll play you until I remember
or hallucinate the feeling
of your beautiful, calloused fingers on my face.

My Love I Love to Listen

I love the way your tongue limps over consonants
But lingers idly on some
Is it linguistics that makes your love
Holy
Is there a cathedral behind your lips
That no one can see
Is it the Irish Sea I hear in your whisper
Come closer
Let’s get lost in translation and I’ll taste what I can’t understand
The details just don’t matter
I heard love
That L that limps forward on your palate like the
Liffey limps toward Dublin Bay
The O that’s as soft and hollow as the
Crypts at Clonmacnoise
The V that vibrates on your lips like the tender hum of
Spirits ten thousand years old
And an E
As silent as the fields of Athenry
Sweet sound, let me swallow your meaning
And I’ll never be hungry again

Unborn

Oh my son, I’ve dreamt you again.
You’re thin as this sleep but let me hold you
My little egg shell child.
Does it hurt anymore when you fade away?
I’m sorry
To make you say goodbye so often.
What is it they say
About mothers letting go?
They can’t.
I never held my dream in real arms.
Real arms, no
But I held you and I hold you still
In fragile visions that feel like memories.
Oh my son, to have memories

In the Absence of Faith

His voice aged that night as he spoke quietly about the disappointment
and rage
that only a prayer could soften.
Beneath the words that bubbled in his chest
his heart beat
but he did not know what for.
I listened to his anatomy and found god
and wished he would speak instead.
The rise and fall of his chest staggered as he made sentences,
useless articulations that failed to find meaning or peace.
Occasionally I kissed him
when only his tongue clicked against the palate of his mouth
and words began to tumble back into his throat
where they stayed without breath
to push them forward again.
He did not kiss back but I tried to breathe some light in
to sustain his searching.
I held him until he slept, and in the darkness that penetrated only one of us
I prayed.

Lost in music

My fingers tear across the hard brass strings
and they ache to find the right note
the right chord
to trigger my memory.
I found you once in a diminished B 7
but you vanished and moved on
and I’ve been playing ever since.
And what if you’re a melody,
Lost in a pattern in these goddamned frets.
Then I’ll learn to write songs
like I learned to play guitar.
I’ll find you, I swear,
and I’ll play you until I fall asleep.
I’ll play you until I bleed.
I’ll play you until I remember
and then maybe the song will be enough.
I can’t bring you back.
I can’t even dream.
But if I can resurrect just one memory
or hallucinate the feeling
of your beautiful, calloused fingers on my face
then I won’t ask for anything more except to
play your song
again and again.