in the middle of the night sunday i wake up and turn in bed to hold you only it’s just a pillow and i am alone that morning my heart throbbing a kissy face emoji goes out our first red heart it is the conversation we can’t get enough of sweet eye meets gizzard grins the touch that morning my heart sent a kissy face emoji blew our first red heart monday morning no work on my mind and instead i write you a purple poem slide it in a bottle and push it down the river Styx for you to gather on at the battery docks on Manna-hata’s tip you uncork that sunset’s sour vintage where the taste is not what the wine is not what the sweet translucent flesh of grapes had dripped - stickying our fingers at day’s demise for one day you did not reply in bed i hear the whine of the mosquito i know it will be a long night still you have not replied my phone buzzes an associate, a friend she bit me on the shoulder she bit me on the face that morning i wake up late from a bunk bed dream where the bay waters had risen and you can’t see the city from Oakland anymore the mosquito is trapped: buzzing around in a cup with a cloth over it beside my bed and a butt full of my blood i take her outside on the fire escape lift the cloth and watch her erratic flight among brick and iron ... later, you reply it seems callous to me three heart emojis none of them red and a chesnut but as my tears clear I see the fire peach and navy the purple and the olive pit
we enjoy a purple embrace sun falls into hoboken exploding silently slow oranges rippling against the hudson an endless breathing dance of fire peach and navy fills our head kiss summer eyes. the olive pit you toss in the water is the sand pattern slipping through your fingers. it sinks to the seafloor one dark seed under the hudson joins ten million other human sins. hellish fractal infinities once danced on your palm in these specks of sea-dust blown from a distant star. I will take you to the purple planet whose ocean island laps at the banks of your dream beach where every grain of sand was born between your hourglass fingers and lychees dangle from the low grove.
“You want to eat you go to Chicken Cottage”
The man outside barks. It’s cash only, and an attempt is made to beg Brits for a couple pounds.
Luckily there's another, quieter Chicken Cottage, with nobody in it, and this one accepts cards. The fries taste like old grease. The nuggets are the nuggest - held delicately between thumb and fore.
“Let’s find somewhere we can sit outside and eat this.”
The park entrance is at the dead end of a lane in South London.
Tip the water bottle for a swig, pinky stuck in the air.
“We’re in London.”
A smile.
“Can I put my arm around you?”
The flat smells like moth balls. The second thing is the furniture - tasteful and warm. A large window covered by thick venetian slats. Beside it, the olive green chair: a curved danish number, elegant in its size, and with four polished wooden legs in a splay. It is overhung by a two-orb cantilever lamp in rosy metallic.
The ceiling fixture is an open ended cylinder: aurburn in extérieur, reflective copper within. A single Edison bulb within emits a scientific orange glow.
Four eyes examine the dresser - rich wood bisected artistically by veins of inlayed brass, whose thoughtful arrangement is uninterrupted by the breaks between drawers.
The bedspread is a warm white decorated lightly by black embroidery - a band of lace forming a square that speaks of nuzzley sweet interiority.
Two cross-legged people face one another.
“What would that look like?”
A smile.
“That would be nice.”
…
A morning glance between the venetians affords vistas of lush spring foliage and a futuristic peek of London’s iconic “Shard” as cobalt surrenders to dayblue.