unsent letters to a lover from last year
1.
If I could make you love me
I would.
2.
Driving up a street named for some alien
world—some desert burnt blue
by multiple suns--you rest
your hand on my knee, nod
out the window at buildings empty
as snake skins. You say,
"It all moved out. The city--
just a shell."
3.
Are you out there?
You never
write.
4.
In my desert, darling, the suns
would keep you up for days
and when you fell you'd dream
they were my eyes.
5.
I tried to throw an ocean
down between us, carved the tide
into my breast--no good. The woman
you left lurks underneath still
(these are pearls that were her eyes)
written over as if ink
could blot out the shadow
of your tongue.
6.
You say,
"There’s just something my crotch
likes about your crotch."
7.
If I could grow my teeth
long and sharp as knives, drip
venom through the vessels
of your body like iodine
to stain the outline of the heart
I wonder that you have
I would.
8.
I remember best
the dark slant of your eyebrow:
wicked, like Errol Flynn condensed
into an inch or two of hair.
9.
You don’t write, and all I do
is write, like you crept into my veins
with some tattoo; it all comes back
to you, you, you--as if you
were a language or a virus
embedded in my neurons sparking
when your name electrifies my tongue.