& illusion

It wasn’t like
you fell
the line.
All street
backsides
plump and
scarlet. There
the moonlight
half green,
half lemon zest.

The magician
magically rises,
sure to cover
his left foot
in shadow.
In this light
it’s difficult to
know what is
happening
and what is
just poem.

This half
world can’t
recognize things
like your steadfast
eyes, how well-
worn your image
is in my own
personal equation.

(She reminds me
It’s not poetic
to always go home
with the same guy.
But you alone
are a mixture,
a hybrid
of balsam and
trajectory.) You say
you are not
complicated. Often
I find you
impossible.
How else
would we maintain
the beam
that divides
these galleries?

It’s not
a matter
of playing
along. In a quiet
moment, you
fall pale and
demystified.
But at the end
of each critical
flash, you return.
The magician
not levitating,
but standing on his
left toe. The poem
collapses. Your face
may be
looking away. There
is no more
secret. That
alone may
keep us.

& counting

Gondola, red envelope. Sweet boxcutter and dandelion. She walked through the valley, undesiring. Bleu-rimmed china keeps appearing, plates flying like UFO's like salad like wheels. Once, I sat there, surrounded by quick transportation. Specifically, dragonflies and trains. Always hating the smell of cigarettes, how it meanders and rivers and zeros out the oranges. Voile. Trick ponies. The famous poet said to be deliberate. Was he set on fire? Wasn't it an unwritten rule? She argues that nothing is unwritten. She can prove it, her lacquered nails, her tobacco lips pursed. I will tell you one more time. It was red and floating. It is gone now and never did.

Unusual, her fingers twirled anxious photographs. Clearly of children. What of centuries of goddesses trying to be women? Are their bodies hardened in birth; how do they carry and bear? Aware of shrapnel. Exploded torso. Can a bone explode and become another body? World or wars. Glue or anovulatory spike? It has nothing to do with the moon.