CALORE
caffeine stunned we breakfasted on cakes the size of runes
told our fortunes I reread your mind in mine
& groped for scents of raw wire spiked
nerve ends at their endless wit’s end
back in those days we had bones
love’s raw physics cast a vast array of shapes
mystic wheels tapers knotted ribbons
scraps of floating felt
I vowed wrote troth in gel-tip on your hip
skies once inked with deep Kandinskian blue
now drop back laundered of all sense
though instances of warmth remain
Flammarion & steeped
the seedlessness of stars
CALMO
we’re all on something
I’ll choose yours if you choose mine
I sought the weedy waters
till my shell grew back
avoided dark asphalt
nights condensed electrically
but now a canopy of slate bleeds east
arrests an oceanic sense of loss
I was counting on you to calm me down
to shore up shaky terrains of doubt
the radio astrologer says
there’s mercury in my sign
but fails to mention
the base metals in my heart
CADENZA
your version of me no longer exists
coloured numbered whole tones
in the beanbag brain’s neat folds
will this help me reassemble
sample days of sheer radiance?
standing here I am we were
somewhere in our thirties
though I don’t recall
these skies of unstunned hake
or glass fields rimmed with landed cloud
you’ll see yourself again as others do
the randomness of eating out
or floating on your back
until you learn to blush anew
caffeine stunned we breakfasted on cakes the size of runes
told our fortunes I reread your mind in mine
& groped for scents of raw wire spiked
nerve ends at their endless wit’s end
back in those days we had bones
love’s raw physics cast a vast array of shapes
mystic wheels tapers knotted ribbons
scraps of floating felt
I vowed wrote troth in gel-tip on your hip
skies once inked with deep Kandinskian blue
now drop back laundered of all sense
though instances of warmth remain
Flammarion & steeped
the seedlessness of stars
CALMO
we’re all on something
I’ll choose yours if you choose mine
I sought the weedy waters
till my shell grew back
avoided dark asphalt
nights condensed electrically
but now a canopy of slate bleeds east
arrests an oceanic sense of loss
I was counting on you to calm me down
to shore up shaky terrains of doubt
the radio astrologer says
there’s mercury in my sign
but fails to mention
the base metals in my heart
CADENZA
your version of me no longer exists
coloured numbered whole tones
in the beanbag brain’s neat folds
will this help me reassemble
sample days of sheer radiance?
standing here I am we were
somewhere in our thirties
though I don’t recall
these skies of unstunned hake
or glass fields rimmed with landed cloud
you’ll see yourself again as others do
the randomness of eating out
or floating on your back
until you learn to blush anew