PROMISE

when the constellations separate / and instead spell out future horrors / when the future is a sewn mouth / when the earth is a flattened disc / when the stringy dark screams back / when the crows break against the wind-shield / when the past is sealed with the clean
fucking wax-teeth of all the starving eastern whip-poor-wills / when the oceans ascend in a wall of jittering droplets / when nothing has gone the blue and human
way we wanted / when another blameless robin goes unborn / when the brain is a knot of barbed wire / we
pick / and pick / and pick / here’s what i’ll do / i’ll say goodnight / lover / see you in the morning / and it’s always true / believe me / believe me / forget everything i’ve said / it’s all wrong / don't trust a lick of it / except this / goodnight / goodnight / the sweetness is coming

I WANT YOU TO LOOK AT THE MOON

(written only with words & phrases from quotes by the astronauts of the apollo missions)

realize, not even the garden
of eden is infinite. make
these impossible molecules
live for more than a moment.

in the body, there emerges
an intense dissatisfaction:
is this it? are we so delicate?
high up, freedom associated

with the absence of home,
the sparkling darkness
of space; in a different
world, the veiled crater

of my neck, flushed with
sunlight. we’re too young
to understand that we’re
too young to understand.

all of us, i mean. i touched
with one hand the ancient
mystery of the heavens,
sky-blue—and look at that!

i’m really here! i’m really
here, quite close to you.

ON THE LAST DAY, I CAN'T HELP

but be giddy. leave the bed unmade, the books scattered
spine-side up. chores are outdated. still, feed the cat.

how’s the air? celestial orange. my cheeks round and red
and full of blood. the heat reminds me of how ends wear

the same clothes as beginnings, those shimmering midwest
days that stunk of chlorine, how the sun was two fists

clasped together. tune into stereo radio only: confessions
of love, accidental unsaids, prayers to the warm god. the frequency

whines like a skinny dog and we’re quick to silence. no, no
one goes hungry. future stares into us as an accelerating wall

of eyes, a locust swarm. the past is a ball we toss between
hands. do you wield dual guns? not me; i won’t spend my last

moment looking away. drink while there’s time. has to be ziggy
on the speakers. i’m thinking of what’s unresolved: aliens, peace,

those unidentified sounds bellowing from the bottom
of the ocean. a lack of conclusion is a conclusion. closure

is a manmade phenomenon. i imagine we go to a hill,
a cliff, altitude to give us the illusion of bigness. i’m vast,

i know it, and the cliff wil be full of strangers with the same
delusions of grandeur, which means we’ll get on like a cliff on fire,