Insomniac research
This pillow is a poor
stand in for your form
lying next to mine but
it is as close as I will get
for tonight at least.
I miss your body
wrapping around, interlocking
with, in perpetual motion
with my own, like ivy,
like jigsaw pieces.
We don’t make the whole
puzzle but we fit together
snug.
Pillows can’t sing you
to sleep. Proof? Pillows don’t
breathe, their chests do not
rise and fall as they lay by
your side. Their hands do not
reach for yours in the night.
Their heads do not rest on your
chest or shoulder. Believe me,
I have done extensive research.
Conclusion: To sleep alone,
without you, is not to sleep
at all. Sleep, that narcoleptic
union, only occurs when
a body that fits your form
fills the hollow space opposite
your heart in the night.
Why else would the heart lean
to the left if not to make room
for another—
on the right.
Still a Better Love Story than Twilight
I saw two crows courting
over an empty packet of Tayto
on Sunday morning.
They croaked sweet nothings
softly to one another,
beaks intertwined,
puffed, content, both
pinching the edge of
the packet, one on cheese,
the other on onion.
The Power Goes Out
and in the silent night air
all that can be heard
is the animal processes
of our bodies groaning.
A chorus in fluids and gas,
muscles like a colony
of worms tensing, relaxing,
tensing. Oscillating instinct
-ually. The dark is no friend
and our bodies whisper,
incantation like to them
-selves, to each other:
What might be what
might be what might
be what might be
out there.
All That’s Between Us is Time
All that’s between us is time,
that landscape hidden beneath
the tide. We tread it, all of us, at
the same, halting pace, foot by foot,
second by second as the flood recedes
from our toes, just a little further,
just a little more. Almost together
again. Like hands on a clock almost
embracing. Celestial bodies in each
other’s orbit, pulled closer with every
lap of it all, every near miss, every
flirtation with collision. The tide
sweeps out inch by inch. Inch by inch
the comets of our bodies grow closer
to impact, embrace, complete destruction.
All that’s between us is time— and space.
Alien Buddha Press 