I would have you hold me again,
but I am frightened.

The water fills the shower ankle deep
When I was small I swore it was possible

to go down the drain. Nothing she said
could convince me otherwise.  She was wrong.

I  need to move away from here.
My dog has become anxious

There are gunshots every night.
I swear she dreams of chasing the bus you left on.

She whimpers so loud, Sirius has started to complain.
I close my eyes and try to count 10 but can never make it

past six – I am worried  that when I close my eyes the North
Star looks for a way out.

I would hold you again, but I am uneasy.

Like that muggy august night when I saw
a coyote sulking and wet under a streetlight

on Sepulveda.  It was strange, no one was out.
So strange, you couldn’t believe it

but I shake all the time.

the early morning sunlight settled
on the window sill. Material light,

silken or liquid in its movement
reveals small dust swirls in the air,

left over conversations of your skin
to mine.

After making love we sleep,
a momentary death

where we join all our dead.
But unlike them in their dark beds

we wake once more, together
in the late morning’s

yellowed ivory light.

Blossoming

There are wars and rumors of wars.
machineries and machination of

singular dark days
and singular dark clouds that hang

like props above our city.

We shut the window, we avoid their play.

Hungrily we take refuge between
each other’s legs.

How comforting this is to us,
to love without armies or tanks

or generals of reasoned love. 

2.

There are wars and rumors of wars.
machineries and machination of 
singular dark days

From the narrow street, they can see us
wrestling with an angel -

 the tugging of limbs and hair- 
You speak low so they can’t hear

your  seditious talk of love,
where my callused hands get tangled

in your  low moaning – while I hold you down

to the bed, 
                    my captive.

The occupation has begun —

your occupied body
          my country of ardent prayers.
 

3. 

There are wars, 
machineries and machination of

singular dark days.

The soldiers are all leaving for the front. 
Not us,  we will stay

       and wage our war
                             of tenderness.

They are all leaving this morning.
         
Give them your applause for their sad 
theater, and all their war ships 
                                       and planes.
  
Soon

they will write letters home
which will arrive without them.

  A few men will return,
          return gaunt; much less 
  than before
            with more sadness and less
dancing.

And when they do
  our war 
            will have ended 
            with a flag of white
                             bed sheets,

only a little blood,

               victorious,
                   writing love letters on each other’s bodies.

a cold wind wakes dead leaves, now chattering with one another,.