the city sleeps wrapped
in gray dawns and dreaming

of snow, a different place
from what it was

this time last month,
last week. we pretend

the rain falls only
for the soft echoes

on bedroom rooftops, and i
am reminded

of how slippery
januaries can be,

their hunger
that seeps

through exhaust-
stained glass and

seeds my fingertips
with a dark need

for some sort of
acceptance

in warm flesh
or willing words.

contemplate the weight of january
waters, heavy as wet wool on
thin shoulders, a blanket to smother

midnights of hot inquiet. the sound
of broken four o’clocks
scatters like buckshot in fragile

february air, echo of crying
arterial rapids over
cold Virginia stone. this is

not a time for love songs.
custom carries you
home each night to fall

asleep fully clothed,
wander dreaming through
canals of empty

mystery, their brambled
banks sharp as razorwire. if
you’re searching

for a hand to hold
in the muddy afters, mine
is small but here.

in
shockoe,
foul waters run
downhill, trickle-drip
through cobbles like
tears on stony
cheeks.

canal-shadows
lie like fog ink
in the footprints
of the devil’s half acre,
glutted with the browns
of swollen January.

the river dreams of escape.
seabirds cry grey laments,
the beating of their winterwings
stirring blighted hope
as they careen homeward, away,

and,
for the first time,
i am
afraid
to walk the water-paths
alone.

consider this
the heartbeat of twenty-
seven stolen seconds, dead

reckonings in
bitter January birth-
pangs; consider

this the end
of beginnings, letters
upside down

on an unfinished
page written by one
who breathes the last

gypsied breath
of penance wearing
chipped midnight

on her toes, walks
the iron-dark canals
like some soulless

wild thing, all the while dis-
(re)-membering:
once upon a

time, i knew
how to write
love songs.

The fifteenth. Almost too early to be called morning.
A last wide-eyed breath, oxygen
lines not enough to pull life
down into lungs riddled with what is no longer lung,

nolonger her.
There are no witnesses except the roses
beginning just to bud. He plants a miniature, pink,
in the side bed she had wrested from dust.

Her side of the bed lies cold, stretches
south. The phone rings again,
and again and again. He isn’t
told the day they put her in the ground.

Her carefully tended gardens bloom
once more, fade. The pink thrives
in caked mud through hottest summer,
slight scent of cloying memory.

September brings the burden of storms,
hurricanes. The side bed is awash,
and he is hundreds of miles away.
Wrapped in cold stone,

she can’t hear the wind as it cries.
First frost comes late, softly.
The twenty-fifth, Christmas morning,
a single blighted bud nearing

crimson
has risen shyly against the
white of Decembergrass, but
he doesn’t make it in time to see.

Between May and December
many things change.

I’ll do the falling
if you’ll clean

up the mess,
she says with closed eyes,

glowing. All the stars
in the universe

won’t save you from
breaking. Tamed,

she walks the snows
like lonely Saturday nights,

suffers too many li(n)es
woven into two-

hour unhung
afternoon

windows. Un-
heroed: she offers

the exquisite absolution
of her scars,

pale scalpel-sighs
on wrist & thigh & page,

stale redemptions in
unlit firelight.

 I won’t burn
without you.

The refraction of one-way windows
into remorseless blue-
puddle pasts full
of breaking
glass and sad Sunday

mornings angles
incidentally with the co-
efficient of sweet f(r)iction that
beads sweat on rivergrass
in December sunlight.

(Their shattering is
a thing beyond
the imperfect forces that pull
bodies & universes
together.)

Don’t hide
behind the language,

hesays,
& means it:

sculpt your words
into the grumble

of trains
that rail in

sympathetic
overdrive

beside a silentrunning
river, gray

Decemberdepths
like black

ink
on a wet page

& verses punc-
tuated

with the mourning
warningwhistle

as she slows
on the outskirts

of where yesterday
meets tomorrow.

That crossroads
is all there is.

un-
straight,

(like a)

tin-can shot
at

fleet-fragileimpossibleunheralded
happiness,

both wide-eyed barrels
staring down

wanderlusted glances
through smoke-crusted tomorrownights in

some back-bay bar where
the

backup guitarist
looks a little like you

and i’m a little
in love

with possibilities, running too
many yellows

before the needle
goes to zero.

sometimes i
ache
for the darkness,

turn my eyes
before the ocean of his
mouth

has d(r)ied
on my
lips,

remember
distinctly
the thick taste

of charcoal sucked
through the brown
slatted shades

that hid sunshine
from the secrets
inside.

there are scalpel-
scars still on
flushed flesh,

mirror-marks
of time that
doesn’t pass,

connective tissue
knotted into daisy-
chains of white tomorrows:

where waters whisper
of salt and rust,
there is yet

frost
to come.
i accustom

myself
to the sound
of endings, learn

to hold my hands
close(d). sleep
is the natural

consequence
of over-
dreaming,

an exhaustive
star-eyed
lumbering

collapse. sometimes
i think i
think too much.