Eclipse

To Obe

Every few years,
Like an eclipse,
I see you once.
And every time,
Just like the moon,
You sink in me.

---

I blur the edges of your name
And watch her fake a smile,
And with my anger, proceed to bury them all.
The vastness of the hall, the resonance of empty chairs,
The grimace just before her voice breaks,
And in the hollow of her black you peek,
A punctured soul billowing in the light.

---

You come and load me with the guilt of the jasmine
And leave like an empty street with no name.

---

Flattened I sat in front of you
Picking my slivers from between your teeth,
Putting out the fire for the last time
Before you leave.

Flattened I sat against the sky
Scraping my smile off smeared walls,
Piecing it for you, upside down.

Flattened I faded before your eyes
A hundred years in one,
And in every year I invented myself,
Again, just for your pride.

Flattened, from beneath the table,
I looked up at you soaring above your skin
Claiming the stars like you just spat them;
And I wondered why, while crunching the moon,
You sounded like an angel choking
On broken glass?

The Answer / Life

The answer is not the answer;
The answer is losing track of the question.

How can you reduce Life to such banalities?
I am not reducing Life; I am calling it by its name.

Home

To Wojtek

Sunshine
Scorching your face
Spilling off the edges of a fig leaf
As it shimmers into the muddy river--
Cordoba in your eyes.
Life promising more than it can give:
The cobblestones of Florence,
The stench of Venice,
And us.
Our laughter smelled of oranges rotting in the dank night,
The glowing edges of your naked figure on the balcony,
And my smile--solitary, quivering, and wide.
Feed my dreams on your runaway soul,
Give me no rest--rest is for the departed.
I will drink in, if the glass is empty I'll fill it
With the corners of my hope,
Dusty and scarce.
I will follow, for I have no home
But the sunshine.