there is an island
where all our lovers live

alongside old friends
and the ghosts we haunt

I come in dreams
and rainy days

when the mist clouds the sky
and their spectres

blur the space
before me

have you forgotten me?

or, in remembering,
will you seek to forget?

I know what I do

that I stand at a precipice
and drift, and fade

what a curse, to be wild

that once we have our fill
we must go

what do we share
but a history?
no matter, stay!
radiant friend
who comes on a ribbon
where my past hangs
like a gray charm
sans ceremony

But how can you live
at the sea’s edge

in the winter winds
when even birds

take off in flocks?

But how can I leave
the clear water

that laps the shore
to the rhythm

of a placid heart?

Where do you go
when you turn the corner

and I pull my luggage
far and away

with a weight
in my heels?

If I look back
will I petrify to stone?

It would not do.
I must lose you.

to know the planes
of your face

in all manner of light
to feel the scrape of charcoal

and brush the dust away
from all that isn’t you

to paint lights
in your eyes

and lift your gaze
from tinted paper

to make a mess of myself
in focused frenzy

to be covered
in your colors

to let you see yourself
the way I see you

I suppose love
is like freedom:

Unceremonious
after a while.

When you’ve lost it,
an unknowable dark.

And when first felt,
like chasing the horizon

and meeting the sun.

do you name
the beast that follows?

what of
its hunger?

all my life
at my heels

a spectre
in daylight

“stop…
quit… quiet…

cower….”
or she’ll have me

with iron jaws
and eyes

black as night
without stars

I’ve built you again
of sticks and daydreams

and stuck you together
with the sound of your name

I’ve whispered in your ears
the things I should’ve said

but your likeness
slumped forward,

crashed down, as if
it couldn’t bear the weight