why my first kiss will be on my wedding day

nothing would bring me closer to you. nothing, not even

licking snack dust from your fingers, not washing your feet

at the highest point of the ferris wheel, not even opening

all the presents on christmas eve. you see it's about giving,

and once we're married you better believe i'm giving

our first kiss all that i've got. oh i am so excited

to put my lips against other lips. the sweet briny thrill

of co-mingling fluids. i want to believe

that all this time you were looking at me, except

there is no way. i waited. my lips twitching

for showtime. hearing you ask, how can your face

be so close to another's yet never touch?

this poem as answer. this idle daydreaming

of our first kiss revisited, scratched,

as if it never happened. until it does

sudden tense switch of your favorite song

what are these things                                   too far away                                   you


             cannot caress against                       your ear                 (delicate mine)



        wonder woe           /              care proxy               /             indirect songbird symphony
               


                                                       a couple hours                   we hold                  (held)


 
                   the ghost-jar of reasonable distance
               

                                                            a logical split                      memories spat          out
                 
                                                                                                              like cherry pits

        gardening throat soil                                      gone bubonic                   


                                           give     (gave)     reasons    for      sunlight      to        imitate                                     

                        sing/sang another verse another verse another verse another verse

                                                                             
                                                                 waiting on a new vexation


          last night for a moment i couldn't see who was hostage


                                                                                       and this thought i have

                                                                 (had)

                     can't stop feeding                                           
                                                                                 the starving instrument

                                                                                                                             makes music

                                 from craters                from abrasions


                                                               
                                                          from remnants of february                            lodged in


               delicate mine                                                                                             (your ear)                                                       


                                                           i am still holding here

    & won't forget

     
                                                                                       (well, haven't yet)




           how you make
                   you make
                   you made                                                                                      me feel

                                                                               

                                             
                                                                                                                                           
                     

You Are In My Way

    I woke up in the nation of commercialization, crystals of a careless world still clinging to the corners of my eyes, and took a ragged breath, left my glasses on the table so I could not see, and went to make coffee—


                                                                       but you were in my way.



    I saw postcards of lynchings and a serial abuser elected— reminding me of when you told me about the time his friend pulled your hair in the kitchen, and how he shrugged when confronted, and how you cried yourself to sleep— as circuses, zoos, theaters and schools jack up their tuition. I wanted to teach English in China, or see the town in Mexico where Mama and Ramon were born, or see a single coral reef before they are all bleached off the face of the Earth. I look at the autopsy, and see myself, an atom of sickness, and reached for my only weapon—


                                                                        but you were in my way.


    We discussed.... not much, and owed it to the moment which could not be spoiled by the quotidian erosion of our rights. We did not discuss the sound children make as their parents are ripped away from them. We did not sit down to dinner. We didn't talk about the job your father took in Colorado, which refinery he was reviving or which plot of land he was eyeing. I don't know how to talk about our country's abuse with you. Since abuse was all you knew.

    I dream of wanting to remember my dreams. I showed you the exit and you would not take it. Once my breath was strong and full of an ocean I had crossed, an eight month voyage without, so that when I became old I could still sing you songs. Now it clips and drags on the one thing I vowed to never again touch. You melted in my mouth like raspberry chocolate, and said this wasn't goodbye— which is a thing people say when it's goodbye. I couldn't be angry. I couldn't even move, so long as you were in my way.

    See, at everything else, I give up too easy. In an other-worldly November, I walked until my ankles were bruised, in a state that, honestly, was bound to go blue anyway. But nothing was a given. It actually took so much more than we knew. But since that fall I could not get back up, and looked elsewhere, waiting for somebody, not just any body but that body, to fight for me. Your disappearance proves what I have to do. Doing no wrong doesn't make it right. I know that better. And I want to feel better. I have to fight to make myself better.


                                                                                                  And you are in my way.