Я держал бы вас навсегда.

::Steps to the River::

Her young body is like an island
Her beauty the waves that continually break upon it
There is a hidden place
a hut of tendrils and vines
in whose moist shade even now
the drowsy god of love
begins to stir

*

Everyone in the village asleep
except us
all night hearing
the blue-sapphire flowers
tearing loose from branches
falling all night
as the two of us
listen

*

Lover of pollen, you are trapped
The struggling bee makes the petals
close around him

*

She lifted her arms to undo her hair
and glanced at me with shining eyes
I swear, friend, even the blossoms of water lillies
catch fire


::Fragments during the first cigarette of the day::
It seems as though my mind is a blank today, only a few words
bubbling up, words like "no," or "glum," but there must
be thousands of others down there, rattling their cages, clamoring
to get out, all kinds of words, big ones, scrawny ones, heroic and
muscular ones, coy, loony words, words tasting of cloves and
licorice, cross-dressed words wearing feathery boas, quantum
words, kaons and koans, singularities, black hole words sucking up
light, love and loss, exploding words, supernovas, words like
wormholes into other worlds, ancient words, Neanderthal words
rubbing together to make fire, Cro-Magnon words rubbing
together to make magic, spells, incantations to sail the dead off to
the underworld, words that make the blind see, that make the lame
walk, words queuing in iambs, vers libre words playing tennis without a net, and yes, I must admit it, bad words
like Jean Paul Sartre dripping ennui.

::It’s all in the approach::
Take one step towards me
and I’ll take one towards you.
Take one step away,
and I’ll take two towards you.
Take two steps away,
and I’ll write a poem about it.

::The Eventual Fire::
"I've never been able
to manage debts well,"
Gabrielle said,
"especially since Kevin
died."
"Yeah, I'm not faring
so well myself."
"Well, you didn't die, Travis."
"Touche."
Now what do I do?
My fork becomes heavy.
The air is leaden.
She cries. Silently.
She stills eats.
I manage one more
minute mouthful of
kamut, and excuse
myself. I walk to the bathroom
at the back of a
seemingly endless hall,
my footfalls are weighted, yet
they make no noise.
I lift the seat and piss,
flush, put the seat down,
wash my hands and stare myself
in the face. Gunmetal blue,
my eyes are. Rimmed and
puffy. I splash some
water on my face, break
a Klonopin in half
and dry swallow it.
I move as a whisper past
the candle-lit dining
room and onto the
railed landing. My eyes
could be seen blocks away
as I stared down my
cigarette into
the Zippo's flame.
A full minute passes
before I light my smoke.
Exhaling through my nose,
I remember why I
smoke the cigarettes that
cost $7.00 a pack.
The smoke is sweet,
perfumey. Not unlike the
cavendish I smoked
when I had a pipe
and considered myself
an intellectual.
Lord, to be 21 forever.
The door behind me
slides open on a bumpy
track. Gabrielle joins me,
leaning against the railing,
her white panties
climbing up her back
out of her pants.
She lights a joint.
"Hmm," she mumbles.
"What?" I say. She begins to
talk about the state the
house is in. Rusted
pipes jutting out
the sides, crying
downward stains
the color
of dying iron
on the city-ordinance
beige that every
home in Seaside seems
to be colored.
Floorboards in the kitchen
are loose and creaky.
The hot water heater
knocks violently.
"Kevin would've
fixed all that shit. Now
I have to pay someone
money I don't have
to work on it. Fucking
world, man."
I spit over the railing
onto a red BMW
in the alley, and return my
gaze across the bay
to the power plant.
She paused for a second,
"Great."
Then snapped her head
at me, glared at me
like I was rubbernecking
her train wreck.
"Well? Aren't you going
to say something sage
and wise?"
I blink, exhale.
"Well? What of it?"
I throw my lit cigarette
into a paper-filled
dumpster below,
"Maybe your house
will catch fire,
then you can collect
the insurance,"
spit again,
then walk back inside
and start doing
her dishes.

One month later,
she died in a house fire.