there is no body like the present

no moment of sinew, grain, or wetness
that is unbeautiful or reaching,
unwanted

in everything, there is skin

stretched like the ocean,
tender to its fullness
below

even in
the shadows
of a
retching
fog,

there is silence

and there is the body,
singing

the way the bird,

bursting at its seams

like a tiny star,

loves perfectly

the chase of seeds

clattering on the sidewalk,

winded.

porcelain

is one way
to describe

the breath of flowers
caught dead

loving.

in this life
i make promises to myself

share them with my
every darkness

celadon
ink

and the rush of traffic
flows – there is

looking
in every direction

setting
into rock and sun sand,

molting
toward the ocean.

at the center
of the universe, known

there is you

– you
and the shimmer of birds

traveling.

at the center
of every life,

there is the cold wind
tasting,

lapping us up
like tea,

like nothing

in every life,
i love you

and we never dry out,
fogging our own

insides with dandelion,
tulsi and ginger,

steamed.

rope
chain
draw
the
water
down,

gravity

sends sex
and supper, supine
in the dark.

line and
no line, lie and
no lie,

half-halo wrapped
around the
neck like
drip,
drip

like the sweetness of water like

drip.

splayed on your bed
hips like lambs’ horns

you were all paper and veins,
teething everywhere
flush with want-nothing.

maybe they wanted to go somewhere,
those hips,
wrap themselves around your waist
until you folded out of yourself
until you opened up

like well water.

i often wonder what might have happened if,
at that moment,

god showed herself to you
and smiled:

your life does not have to be
a delicious, sticky sweet secret.

not once
has happiness
fallen from me

like cake
crumbling off a
chin

boy blooms into
nothing

silvers through
the grass like

nothing, then
shifts the weight

so slight
the shoulders thin

paper on a corner
folded