What is that we use between us, As a sternson? A nutty examination of Antlions, waxwings & monarch butterflies, At midnight – this bar of soft silver We set between the days, where yesterday Is sternpost, and keelson today, to fortify This joint now attaching me to you?

Your ha-ha reaches me across this row Of books I array around my body as A ha-ha; I wake from my reading, wearing Leaves and grass as chausses, and ride Across your body using my hands to dowse For the hidden secret of your gurgling water…

Sunlight today talks using as a hailer This cawing crow, and summer is the dragoman That clambered abroad my sticklighter as it Nosed its way into your bay, where you were Twining lilies into a besom to sweep away The sadness of my years. Asphodels again now…

My thoughts hop, alight and rub Their feet nosily like cicadas tonight. Night air after rain taken on the tongue Tastes like cool white wine poured from The green glassy demijohns of water oaks.

Does their monotonous two-note call reach You there, slipping lightly, between The bars of New York's traffic? Like a doleful dog, Which misses the hand that feeds it, I tempt My life back to this room with a picture Book I was thumbing through, to put off Sleep, on Bella Tuscany…

Here I would have reached over to Poke you, and laugh at your fantasy Of watching Il Positino with someone Named Pinocchio – that name since You like licking noses to show Affection and pleasure…

Noumenon, a word in italics floats out Of the text submerged in drowsiness. I take it, and embroider it to your name; A word, which in my mind too, is A thing that stands in its own light…

After that the line turns to yellow jackets Wrestling, tearing off wings, carrying off heads. I can see your ears perking in attention as You read this. What a strange and strong locus Of love this is, shaped like that tornado funnel Of an antlion, towards whose center all of My thoughts seem to fall…

[1] Before & After

Before knowing you, desire Was a steam locomotive chugging In and out of the grand concourse Of my body.

After finding you, I see it Steaming and stamping inside, Waiting for your light feet Now roving in my veins, To embark and depart Into those strange weathers Of my interior.

[2] Hymn

Rain, and an overcast Sabbath morning. I am not a believer. I am only sure Of these things I now know:

Your laughter that kept me awake, And then roused me from my sleep Last night; the nave of your ribs In which I kneel and call your name, The copulas of your breasts in which I hear distant thunder, and this bell In your belly, I toll with my tongue, In thanksgiving, in want.

[3] Ark

This house is the ark. These are the animals Of land, air, and water.

However entwined with You, I can’t tell which One of us is Noah!

[4] What He Said: (after Kuruntokai)

From the dense groves of waving palms This evening, I, Mayon, The dark-bodied god of herdsmen Drive the thirty-two grazing White cows across the hills and vales, Chewing on the white flesh of a tender Coconut, towards where jasmine beads The dark stand of her hair.