You’re such a 
compact little bonfire,

I want to put you
in the cup of my hands

and hold you
though I’ll be burned.

Hold you out of 
the rain and snow.

Hold you from sunset
to sunset again.

Even a little heat 
is welcome,

and yours
is no little heat.

Even the charring
is a cleansing thing,

and the healing that follows
is all your doing too.

You’re such a 
teacup blaze,

I want to drink from you
and stay warm for years and years.

Cloud, my Cloud,
my lover Cloud
whose head is a floodgate,
whose body is a storm surge,
whose soft voice can rise
to a cleansing roar;

Cloud,
whenever you open up
I’m afraid I’m going to drown
but then comes a great wave
and I ride, move, shift
toward safe landing,
beach under white stars;

CLOUD!

Backlit by moon,
blued and fluffed
by jealous sun,
changing to meet fickle winds.

Cloud, 
here below
I recall such cool depths 
of you.  

I remember
how you are sometimes
driven and ragged on fast air,
other times
grand, gentle,
drifter in a calm sky;

Cloud,
open up again for me, upon me.
I’m ready now.  I’m more than
ready now —

I need your rain now
to come alive again,
parched as I am,
withered as I am,

thirsty for you as I am.

that night
the way you reached across to me
simple stars above us
the half-moon
(we could not decide
was it waxing or waning)
ease of the kiss 
and the kiss itself

did you imagine this
did you imagine this into being that night as I did
was this a shared spell cast that night

we came down that night in favor of the moon waxing
in favor of increase
in favor of growing

did we imagine this season into place

I only question because
I want to know how we did it
how we made it
how to make it again

how to favor the growing

They were quietly getting it on
in the last row
and we all knew it,

but we thought back to when
we got it on in the trailer
with friends “sleeping” three feet away,

or when we held our breath in the closet
as we sat in there clutching each other
when a parent came home early from work,

or how we lay together so still in the bushes
hoping no one would miss us from the party
for very long,

then turned our faces away
and tried to handle our own business
without letting on that we knew.

Let’s not talk about the heart.
We know the heart is never
in charge really;
it’s just
a good metaphor
for how the head
first grooves with
then wars with
the genitals.  

Perhaps there’s a structure within
that holds court when we sleep?
Not quite brain or groin,
perhaps a fulcrum between them?
Dreams after all do seem often
to teeter upon something…

so if we call that balance point “heart,”
are we at all impoverished?
For instance, if
I keep a dream of you
on the point of balance I call
my heart,
am I a fool for believing
my heart will stop moving
without you?

Here I am
speaking of the heart 
as I said I would not…
but as in waking life
it races all the time
for your presence,

I suppose it can’t be helped.

this morning
gladness — which is to say

a state of being
almost explosive in nature

as if happiness were a gunpowder
and it was lit by some random spark 

(in this case a memory of how
one body stretched toward another once

and of the smile inside when each settled 
against the other and relaxed)

one spark breaks open the gladness
that swells suddenly within

expanding outward to fill
the hemisphere

(I am trying to keep this impersonal
in order to not disappear into the center of it

in order to be able to come back here to it at will 
and feel it again in this small way 

until it is real in my life again
and I will have no need of this poem

for a glad 
glad moment)

I grew up knowing I had a place in the universe.
As star matter I was perfect in that universal way.
I’ve always known my place both atomic

and galactic. Screw that, though;  
I wanted so much less.  
Wanted a moment, a week, a month, no more,

of acceptance by someone
more particular about who is worthy
than the universe is.

Someone pickier, someone less tolerant
of quirks and foibles.  I wanted to be loved
by a person far less interested in loving another.

I wanted to be held and cherished
on a more intimate scale,
but I wanted the Lover

to be a dented angel
who found a simulacrum of heaven in me
despite their initial skepticism at how unlike heaven

I was on the surface.  What I nakedly wanted
was to be desired by someone
the way Emerson and his gang desired transcendence

except I wanted them to find it hard,
almost not worth struggling for;
it wasn’t going to come easily.

Instead, I got you.  I got you
who loves me daily, as matter-of-factly
as dark matter sweeping through me — the love

unseen but present in every fiber.
I got you, who makes me
want to be good in the kitchen, in bed, and in the 

Milky Way.  Whatever sun storm I rouse
around me, you make me lie down and sleep it off
and the next day it’s forgotten.  I craved turbulence

and you’re having none of that.  
It is a little hard to accept which is why I guess
I sometimes act the part of my imaginary dented angel,

though I can’t fake it:  I can’t lie
to myself for very long
about how hard heaven really is to find.

It would not have mattered at all
if I had been  known, unknown,
or mildly known — evil or good or, 
typically human,
mixed and befuddled —
no matter at all.  I still
would have ended up as I have.

I’m today and every day
thankful, in motion still
but no longer restless,
splayed like foam atop
a slight chop 
just beyond sight of land,

thankful because on a latter day
after all the usual questions
were supposed to be
over and settled, I looked into
your damn fine eyes
and understood that questions
are only over and settled once 
in anyone’s life.  I wasn’t there yet,
still am not there, 
not planning on getting there soon
and certainly don’t want
to get there alone.

Long years of mistakes
have led me to this one correct moment.
It may be proof of something I don’t understand
which I will not call either
God or luck; all I will gratefully call

is your name, and say that
the road to this moment was crude
and raw and rough but your eyes
and hands are a blessing and 
a prize, and this life I’ve led
has had in fact
no mistakes at all.

Recall
the finest moment of my life

I’m meat
and potatoes for you

Feebler than is 
good for me
after you’re done 
eating me

I have spasms and
I have chills
I’m bone
and scrap
All the fat’s gone
and I’m hungry enough
to scarf you down

Scarf you right down
to sweetbreads
and poppy

We went feasting
back and forth
all night
like I can’t do now
and try not to remember

I once joined you 
in a banquet
after long starvation

oh tender was I
and you were tender too
and as succulent as the memory remains
it is pain as much as satisfaction