There's a boy in a winter landscape
branches
so burdened by snow
they want to snap
under the weight
of waiting
for the ghost of summer past
to hang up
so we can get on
with our separate lives.
 
I wanted you to spin
your poems around me like a cocoon
so that one day
I could break free
from the chrysalis of the body
frozen
like the perfect still life
framed by the torn sky.
 
All month I ransack memory
for something to make use of,
something like a boy
up all night polishing light
into ice,
layers of lust swept in corners
of heaven.
 
I have no use for the word Iowa
can't place you anywhere
but in the arid clarity of our desert.

When the words arrive sticky sweet
overripe
emotion turns up missing.
 
We are so caught up recording our lives
we forget to live them.
 
When I undress
I can't remember who I am.
I see myself in the blurred blue eyes
of a boy
practicing for the perfect love.
And if we must love each other
so imperfectly
let us go as far away as possible
and remember the crooked dance
that moved through us
when our bodies were not a secret
containing only themselves.