in the vicissitudes of the bud/ and some flower new
this is our heavy heartbreak/ hoisted on backs rending us two

but if when you come back/ everything changes again
our seamy underbellied lives/ will effulge in myriad ceremonial light

all our light is dismembered, torn asunder
"I am more lights than you think. I am not as simple as
you would have me to meet your needs."

heavy pages: pressed flowers between
sheaths of shakespeare’s sonnets: coded spanish
wind carried ships: bearing these missives
wind and storm color July
how to spell out whole words:
transliteration in bones, silence, and salt

her ear pressed to the seashell sea/ susurra la concha
desde la playa de guerra/ red stains the mouth he goes home

hombre con casa y sin hogar/ back when our love lifted us
sobre las llanas y hasta la luna / apoteosis sin altura

eye meets worlds unfold suns rise moon blooms rains wash into gutters
all gutter stories are all of our stories
and which is the true story?

sometimes one trembling star in the sky
lights our way after an eclipse of the patriarchal sun

all our lives are substance: let us pretend
pressing feet into earth: hold fast; don’t fall
moments of: are the walls too thick too thin?
verges edges precipices: held fast you made me fall
into truer stories, the one thousand waves below
verges edges precipices: held fast but she left she’s gone