patellar reflex

i love, i love, i love.

i cannot stop but
it is so near
when you are--

i want to just be.

its involuntary, all of it.
like a patellar reflex in
my knee, i love you.

the red sea

i have gone and bleached you out.
like a stain of wine on my favorite shirt
i have purged you gone.
the red sea has swallowed you whole
your chariot will ride
no more.
yet what land or sea
could keep you to begin
with?
you unearthed yourself
from the desert sand
and in your thirst
you drank me dry.

how selfish you are!

the red sea will swallow you whole
and water your mouth its fill
of love and
salty greed in the desert.
And should the sea spit you out, the
sand will not take you back.
you will wander to sinai
but your feet will not rest.

you are never satisfied, afterall,
with the ground you have tread
or the mouths you have loved.
so wander the desert,
my dear, until it takes
you back.

sometimes i worry about you and i.

blood brothers

we are almost in alphabet city

running down

first avenue

we are almost in alphabet city

eating nights away

in june,

and stepping over puddles

on the bowery.

the water clings to

the bottoms of our

shoes and seeps into

our heels.

the streets are in our

blood stream now

like blood brothers

we'll never forget

eachother.

we are almost in alphabet city

the avenues getting

closer to the water--

the water that

beats between the

shores of qns and

this chunk of island

beats between you

and i.

the east river and its

brown brown waters

hug the boroughs

we love best.

we alre almost in alphabet city

one foot in qns

and the other on the bowery.

but don't spread those

legs too wide

don't lose your balance

and maybe something else.

our fingers shake and

our ankles quake

on this lower east

side corner.

let houston run you through--

you won't die on this

side of the water--

she'll jsut steal half

your soul and feed it

to the river.

let houston run you

through the lung, my love

as we sit smoking

in the garden.

the bowery owns us

now, sugarplum--

we're blood brothers--

let her love you through

let her love you through

the sole of your feet.

let her sidewalks love

your legs as they wander

up and down

up and

down

lettered avenues.

you must

(for the slam tomorrow night? maybe, we'll see.)

these words
are like water
gushing from my mouth
always wanting to leap out
off my lower lip
onto yours
spilling over the dam of mouths
into the river of a kiss:
"darlin, i love you! i love you so"
but i think you--
i'm sure you--
know.
i cannot say it
i willnot say it
i said it once and i will not again
not until
your foundations
are shaken
and you must--me--
you miss
me so that
you say it
first.

boxing up

it was tonight our last night in 4c5

that betsy cried 

and her hot tears flooded my head

right down to my shoulders

and rolled onto the couch that was new last august.

the walls are wiped clean

pam, we got rid of all the smudges on the closet doors like you said

and i've been scrubbing between the tiles with a toothbrush

scrubbing out the black of this year. 

the floors are shining with our spit

and our beds are empty

the sheets lay stripped and piled in the middle of the room.

i said goodbye  to rachel this afternoon at three.

i hugged her tight and knew that today at three would be last time

i would ever see her curling her hair on the couch

she used to always leave the curler on in the middle of the floor

and i would step on it on my way to class and yelp like a dog whose tail got stepped on.

i have a burn on the sole of my foot from that.

i have a burn on the sole of my other foot from this house.

we piled our paintings on the walls

and re-piled them and moved the couch the night kD and i wanted to scream

because we couldn't stand the complacency a second longer.

we sat on the couch that night, hands folded, and waited for the other two to come home

and find what we'd done.

tonight i'm sitting with betsy in the same spot on the couch but all the walls are bleached 

and the carpet is gone.

we threw away the baskets of yarn and the old clothes from freshman year--
that green dress is pilly and we have no room anymore--

we threw away our house in the compactor room

left the pieces of our second year in white garbage bags tied with yellow strings.

so tonight is the night we shake and shiver in our silent house

with the windows open, letting the air from herald square spill into our chests

because tomorrow we start the summer.

qns will be the sticky tack that keeps us in place. 

it will be the tape thats stuck behind the tears of a page 

so you won't know its ripped unless you look very closely

and stick your nose to the paper. 

non te posso lassare

your love and your heart are weak, collapsible like a beach chair.

this semester ended SO FAST.
tonight we ran in the rain on the lower east side and ate french chicken at a restaurant with no name. tomorrow its going to be cream scones for brunch and spinach for dinner.