Tá tuirse orm.

You cried when I asked you to sift through my ashes,
handful by handful, in a bittersweet dream,
knees bloodied from kneeling, crawling, begging for mercy.
Dsia dhuit². I pray for your heart
as it dries in the summer sun, as it dies in the desert
of your yesterdays and tomorrows, a shriveled cactus rose.

Je me souviens³… The very first rose
to whom I spoke could not talk, only coughed, only wrote, with ashes
flying form its throat; the garden was a desert,
no rain in days and only a meaningless dream,
a simple wish from a fleeting love and a foolish heart,
lowered buckets of crystal clear mercy

to its parched and cracking lips, my lips. “Sweet, savor this mercy
in the shape of one small flower,” you whispered, “a rose
the color of blood, a ruby as grand as my heart,
a symbol of my love when ashes
are all that remain of this abstract dream
we carry on struggling shoulders, shift to the back of our minds. Do you dare desert

me in this desert?
My dearest, where is that mercy
you showed me in our dream,
the one in which you rose
from the ashes
of a burned and burdened heart?”

Dsia is Muire dhuit⁴. Take heart,
even in this wasteland, si seulement pour le moment⁵: this desert
is more than dirt, more than smoky quartz and ashes
of burn victims; te amo⁶, and God showed mercy
to the Catholic cactus rose:
He lifted its head toward heaven and allowed it to dream

in Technicolor, to visit erotic, exotic dream-
lands filled with l’amour, la jeunesse, la beauté⁷, old heart-
throbs and another capullo de rosa⁸, now a rose
of a different color. If anything, let the desert
guide your mercy
to another flower: ouvres grand ton cœur blessé⁹, bathe it in my ashes.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down; do not be angry with me. Dream
of me while you still are able, show me this mercy. Find solace in the steadfast heart
of a distant, desert rose.

1. (Title) Tiredness is upon me; 2. God be with you; 3. I remember; 4. God and Mary be with you; 5. If only for the moment; 6. I love you; 7. love, youth, beauty; 8. rosebud; 9. open wide your wounded heart

Am I the city

She cried in her sleep.
Her pillow soaked,
mascara stained when she awoke.

Let it go, they don’t know.

The stars laugh lightly at luckless lovers.
The roads bow lower to welcome wanderers.
If the sky could catch anything, it would catch fire.
They say, to be human is to be a liar.

Every window wishes for some Windex.
Every storefront wants to mimic Macy’s.
Every corner is terrified of taxis.
And every crosswalk secretly hopes
a pedestrian won’t be so lucky.
Yeah – that’ll teach them for jaywalking.

I think I saw some buildings on Third Avenue holding hands.

They don’t know who you are; who are you?

26.01.2010

This is personal

She was myopic.
When I showed her
Monet,
she saw spots.

I can’t feel my arms, sometimes,
when I wake up; I can’t feel anything
but sunlight and buzzing –
my head is a hive of hornets,
constrained and restless; but
patient:
waiting for a child with a bat
and bad humor
to release the militia.

We will all flail wildly.
We will all fail wildly,
dramatically, emphatically;

and you will feel vibrations in all the wrong places
leaving nociceptors susceptible,
open to the sting,
the realization: you are “mind.”

Where do you go when your body is gone?

I planted you in the soil and watched you grow.
My hands were not my hands
but they pulled you from the earth
as a flower is plucked
and de-petaled.

And then I wake up.
I can’t feel my arms,
sometimes –
I can’t feel anything
but sunlight
and buzzing.

01.26.2010

The day we met

I wasn’t trying to impress you
with crescendos
or my wingspan;
what do you think I am?
The contortionist,
center ring –
bend over backwards
and lick your ankles.

How does it taste?

01.26.2010

The final image

The bathroom floor is a Hermann grid
'til tide comes in;
this sea of red would part...
but Moses isn't watching.

God has him cleaning
the corners of heaven
for guests,
but guests are always coming.
They don’t even knock
anymore, and St. Peter
gave up taking names
after Hell overflowed
and Lucifer started
shipping sinners to Heaven
in UPS brown boxes.

He keeps telling God
to lower his standards –
Hell should be hell,
but if so full that even the
Dark Angel, after retreating
to his chambers, is forced
to feng shui souls in order
to reach his bed and slip
beneath the sheets, then,
obviously,
there is a problem.

I wish I could have been there
to see God roll his eyes
(that’s why Satan
turned into a smuggler).
God’s got an ego, you see,
from everyone saying
He’s so great all the time;
I think He actually believes
He created his mortal minions
from dust, when in fact it was
He who was borne of a pulse
and a current.

NS 12.30.2009

Vampyre

If you bit me and found

That my blood tasted sweet

Would you drink me all up

To the very last drop?

If you bit me once more

And my blood tasted bitter

Would my vinegar cell count

Compel you to stop?

If I asked you to kill me

By drinking me dry

And I tasted like sugar

And sweet cherry pie

Would you even think twice

Before watching me die?

NS 10.31.2009

Cauchemar du Jour (Nightmare of the Day)

last night i dreamed

of a basement room

a cave of sorts

with a center abyss

and rows of chairs

surrounding it

hundreds of chairs

like movie theater seating

and the people come in

and they walk in thin lines

on thin ledges

to reach their seats

so they can sit for a spell

and sleep

i held a kitten to my chest

and watched it

grow in my arms

dreading the day

when we would lose

our strength

and balance

and fall

NS 10.31.2009