1. Night

Lounging naked in bed I lean over like a sunflower,

staring glassy-eyed at my phone,

a dark maw resting its discrete universe on the floor.

No light but the charging red dot,

the flash of cars on the cooling pavement outside,

the faint stain of a turmeric moon.

In the genesis of longing’s long dialogue with lamentation

muffled speech hemorrhages within,

iron oozes over iron, and I can almost understand why

stars, like shiny daggers, slash blindly at the seine of night, why

lightning waits to stab with a scorpion’s bellicism, why

a quivering hand would strike at a cracked prayer bowl,

yearning in vain for that sweet cosmic resonance

that soothes even the most distraught cynic.

My phone vibrates to tell me you have to work later than expected,

and my heart is a hungry emigre that covets the felicity of a fresh peach.

Rose petals, ground and bagged, float in a tea cup with blossoming’s memory.

I roll onto my back, where Hypnos yawns and stretches in the speckled ceiling,

holds out his hand, says, “Please ignore my annoying brother, at least for now.”

Well, I love you. Good night.

2. Day

Waking late, I see your smile

holding up the sun in the smeared ink of seasons,

I sip Turkish coffee on the porch, and watch

my cat Olga flop on her back in our dandelion lawn,

wiggling her tiny paws.

Greens in the garden beam with green hope,

and tiny cauliflower heads peep through leaves.

A lawnmower rattles in a neighbor’s yard,

and birds dash from tiny tree to tiny tree.

But it is in the bumblebee’s fluster I see

the awkward balance in all things,

as necessity interweaves necessity.

How crazy it is to be alive, crazier still to be in love.

I dive into the city’s open wound.

I love you. Have a good day.