raucous freshness

that hot concrete,

minute in detail, by turns sharp and smooth--

i crawled after your shadow.

i was glad to grovel

in the day's sun, which was gray, almost,

in your presence.

i had been tight within myself

always, tight as a seed.

but a hand reached out

of that fiery, turgid depth.

it was a shaken and pale shoot

and it was mine.

i looked at it. it plunged into

the presence of you as if

into water.

look at the cracks in that road.

palpable almost to the eye

in your light, that blue shadow

edged so deep.

like my joy.

watch this hand shake,

with those deep eyes, watch

how you

unfurl me.

raucous freshness

and too, hands, eyes, words and names of things from out the concrete heart, each like lace, with holes in a pattern

(i stood on your porch and i smoked a cigarette.  the sky was night.  and it smelled like the lawn.  a man in a jacket.  there you were.  and you remarked on a choice.  above night circled.  the eyes of my face circled in, falconlike.  you you you

later a woman gave me a deck of tarot cards.

i was dizzy with you.  and it was cigarettes near the lawn.  a choice you made.  later my heart beat with it.  you you you you you)

my veronica, you stood apart, hanged in constellation like the lover of a god.