Poem 2.

Borrowed flannel pants

a piano untuned.

raining saffron beetles 

on a gentrified roof.

Brown eyes that 

shined like glass.

Eros used to be your neighbor.

He stole all of your jars

and refilled them with 

rusted cello strings.

Tossed coins down a wishing well.

In prayer that the gold gems 

embedded in the canvas of my skin 

would be enough for you?

Or me.  

Poem 1.

We took a ride on the
Wheel of Fortune, neither
of us asked to be pinned.
Your back against me
I measured the distance with
anxious fingers and tight eyes.

In a dream, you told me that
you wished on a star
to live in that pink house
near the lake.
A parrot resided in the cypress tree
You said.
A colorful thing that
sang in warbled Spanish.
I woke with a mosquito on my nostril.
A sickening smell of crushed magnolias
clinged to the air.
The guilty rarely sleep well.
I fissured my heart before
you had the chance
three swords shared between us.

A cigarette
my first in six years
under a bridge in Central Park.
Hysteria at sullied white shoes
and disobedient umbrellas.
I'm too soft for straining steel
and late night trains
you are too.
Water is our only salvation.