but complication is all X ever wanted for us.

We misunderstand purity. This is purity.

*

I am your lover and X’s.

I am too good a lover

to ever be bored:

Skinny, hairy-chested,

made of pellets of rice,

cheeping in a way that’s

endearing and inappropriate,

confused, surprised at the confusion,

surprised at the surprise,

and so on, very tiringly, so on.

The Senses

THE SENSES

Everything feels so good to me:

my wool hat,

the cocoon of dryness in my throat.

The sound of burning vegetables

is like a quiet, clean man folding sheets.

But I keep having thoughts—

this thought always holding at bay the next thought

until it sours into yet

another picture of dissatisfaction

that loves to be thought,

another pear, ugly

as the head

of a man who is thinking.

I thought my next thought would be a vision of my suffering;

I thought I would understand the yellow lightning in a painted storm—

the crucial way it disappears

when I imagine myself flung

headlong into the painting.

Instead I have this picture of dissatisfaction,

the thought not rising, but splitting in half

on the unanswered question of lightning,

my mind

like a black glove

you mistake for a man

in the middle of a blizzard.

Holding a Freshwater Fish in a Pail above the Sea

HOLDING A FRESHWATER FISH IN A PAIL ABOVE THE SEA

He strips health out

of the water,

reminding me

of my mother.

I walk in sea

and hold my sweet

fish above me,

no small feat

given the rice-

hard salt scraping

my eyeballs twice

each blink of lid.

I put the pail

in the ocean

and then unveil

the decorous

frail, white-eyed koi.

But the salt, I

think, will destroy

his rocking breath.

Where he wants space

he will get salt.

Where key traces

of the silence

should hang inside

his cathedral

of musical

blood—

Instead, delicious

crystal drills

will crack it all

open; the church,

its ebbs and flows.

I scoop the fish

up by its nose,

a forked affair.

I show you him.

Looks fine to me

you say (Ha!), dim

and lovely you.

This happens more

times, stopping and

starting, me showing

you my full hand,

my fish. Where have

you gone? I was

hoping to wake

from this dream

with you drawing

the curtains, a gold

glow on the sheet

wrapping me up.

You aren’t here

but I’m aware

that somewhere

you have moved.

The Watercolor Eulogy

THE WATERCOLOR EULOGY

for Melissa Carroll

When you leave my mind,

the last piece of you to leave

is your hands.

When you go to the earth

the last part of you visible

above what is either sand or clay

isn’t a hand, but a glowing shroud.

The black goose

with your name in its throat

and my name in its stomach

will cough you up with her hoots:

part jelly, part watch,

part bone, part me,

part power.