Is your love HyperQBic?
Does it have colorpuntal pearls like a ghost poem?
Here we go again.
I’m not thirsty, you’re thirsty
A TRACE OF IMPROVISATION
AS MUCH ADU ABOUT NOTHING
“Didn’t I tell you what I believe,
did somebody say that . . .”
Sade
Helen, like you
my neck once
knew nothing
but the lines
of prayer
Apophenia's lips
traced at its nape
and my nipples
knew nothing
but the orange flame
& blue jasmine
of her fingers
under our sheets.
Back then
I knelt
to pray beside
my radio each night
and felt
your Phrygian psalm
—a hummingbird
hovering for nectar.
But all moons wane
and perhaps because
I didn't learn
to heed her wrists
double need
for velvet-lined
police bracelets
and obsidian
prayer beads
her fingertips
now trace
another man’s tattoos.
And not wane
as failure
but a bluer fugue
in F
—one even I can hum
with atheist breath.
Was our last adieu
a phrase in F flat
or a line in the bass
that loops my faith
into a fugue in the rain?
Who knows
what any religion
requires beyond belief?
Like you
I believe nothing
except some nights
the outer ear
of the moon
can hear me
tune the guitar
of my body
to the tiny notes
of jasmine
in the blues
of our blankets
and sheets.
