Is your love HyperQBic?
Does it have colorpuntal pearls like a ghost poem?
Here we go again.
I’m not thirsty, you’re thirsty
AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION
AS MUCH ADU ABOUT NOTHING
“Didn’t I tell you what I believe,
did somebody say that . . .”
Sade
Helen, I believed
or seemed to believe
in the blue jasmine,
& orange flame
of your fingers
on my neck
as if touch were teach
and the husk of your voice
incense drifting
in a temple.
But all moons wane
and whose fingertips trace
your lunar phases
tattoo today?
And not wane
as failure
but a bluer fugue
in F
your fingers erase
as they fret
—one I can hum
with atheist breath.
Sufis claim
what I seek
is seeking me,
but what if
I seek only
your fingertips
in the weight of blankets,
the feel of socks,
or the fur lining of gloves?
Beloved, I misheard
a Phrygian psalm
as hummingbirds
hovering for nectar
until not even
almond blossoms
could stem
the starving.
I don’t believe
“a love like hours won’t last”
even if
your ponytail’s braid
tightened between
our first slow dance
and last adieu—
even if
my wings still alight
on your eyes’
orange charcoals.
I miss nothing
except the way
your lips & fingers left
their crescent lessons
on my neck
—which is a sin
I say a prayer for.
I kneel beside
my radio each night
as the raptor’s shadow
of your voice
circles above
—yet when I open my mouth
my teeth shatter
into white knives
and my tongue forks
into honeysuckle.
If I kiss
your tattoos again,
I won’t bind myself
inside their silent circles
but instead try to heed
your wrist’s brassy need
for velvet-lined
police bracelets
and what shines
like obsidian
prayer beads.
Is it a phrase in F flat
or an ache in the bass
that loops our faith
into a fugue in the rain?
Who knows
even if
they claim to know,
what true religion
requires beyond belief?
Tonight
I tune the guitar
of my body
to the tiny notes
of jasmine
bluing our blankets
and sheets.
