From the grab bag of desire
I keep meaning to walk up to you,
stranger, and tape my head to yours
to make a more powerful magnet,
or pick you up and carry you
sixteen inches to give you rest,
or take your skirt and put it on
my erection or knit your shadow
into a mint julep or cut off my ears
and sew them to your tongue
so you’ll come close
to being heard, but I have a cat
to pet and she is demanding.
O wake up, silly weasel,
is what my name translates to
if you feed it from one
on-line language interpreter
to another for three hours
while getting a little drunk, a little happy
you’re here but not eternal.
I say you but I mean me, I say drunk
but I mean stoned, I say hello
when I keep meaning to hold a star
or the Ganges. Yesterday
I made a handle for the bell
I hear in dreams calling my lost thoughts
to supper, but how many years
since my last hot cocoa, since a woman
in a black skirt and white blouse
leaned over my shoulder
to teach me long division
but only made me want to kiss
the way she smelled? There’s no one day
when everything will have happened,
no two days we can rub against each other
to light a fire. I keep meaning
to get to the bottom of something,
like thistles or Iceland or loneliness,
but always at the end I get nostalgic
for my confusion and go back
to being the open mouth of a guitar
waiting for the wind to come along
and know just the right thing to say.
