aubade, nocturne, damn
I. at issue
is the glass
between us.
opaque language,
unhoneyed eyes,
ears cottoned in steam.
now to stop
the words,
to prevent a crash,
to make us admit
we were ever simpler:
my fingers on the knot of a tie
your breath untying the mirror.
II. a long time
we were hands
in the body
of some darkness
fishing for a warm baby
in the imaginary placenta:
every morning was the same.
and we drank black coffee
with deodorants still on,
dripping in the sun’s
heavy elements.
III. but it’s alive
in the pointy lips of a miter
and we laugh in a french accent
to disguise the sound of a mushroom
cloud. be certain if we can.
make it bounce like a sax solo.
we have blown our love
in one night, again;
we have raised a brutal howling.
IV. we resemble the red-rimmed clouds.
in dark, our aura. in light, our eyes
give us away. violins no longer
have a thing for breakfast. horizons
accidentally appear in the frosted window
like the orange heat fading from a back-
burner; we sue and sue for the rest
of our lives.
this is the issue.
on historical ground
a sugar cube
is what it is
for the same reason
you are not.
licking it,
but looking
for the
baffling and
heroic music:
unlike patton,
unlike columbus.
but camouflage, not having a lock
on motility, is pliant as wind.
generational
vision is
not binoculared
or telescoped; it is
a common dream for everyone
that circles
discovery and death.
polarity is
about to
snap the rubber band.
cut through it with a sabre.
blood vessels rattling.
war.
elastic
begun as a dare:
but
now
i remember
muscle sharp as radish,
smell of a drumming heart;
bra-strap slipped:
a childhood without hormones
is the adolescence
of dreams.
and there goes your sister.
she’s got that fur you talk about
and walks away,
fumbling with the clasp,
shoulder blades almost touching,
stinging
from the pulling back and
the letting go of my hands,
deep now
in maddening shallow pockets.
parole
the bus padded in rubber.
floated road.
a shallow dust-
wave breaks
on the curb.
he knows susie
and suzanne
are cousins.
names mean voices
must be spoken,
faces bandaged
in moonlight.
he is mixed up
in forgetting.
wants to
clearly forget.
chimneys swim smoke
across a blue sky
splendid and gargling.
there is room
around the bend
for another autumn.
unadorned.
one with open windows
of blown rain.
skyscrapers
call themselves
the city,
narrowing to nothing.
narrowing
to a sentence.
narrowing
to a gavel.
the bus
is an orchestra
dominated by tympani.
the air turns away.
the air turns
and looks
in his direction:
accuses him
of something else.
opportunity for promises
now
for various suicides
there is a hunger.
crusts around eyes
are week-old donuts
flung at a dry heart.
your ptotic promise
dips into the well
of the unafraid.
we are so exact
we pray to be useless;
accept worms
breathing down our
necks while the ridge
of night falls apart in a
star.
that dog you love
chases buried things,
loses consciousness
to the trunk of a tree,
and you howl from frosted marrow,
from blue veins that streak
your face with barely buried blood.
we cannot find a heart
in a trephined skull.
we cannot put back the bone.
we are out of ideas,
thick without a heart
between us.
between us,
is only a psychotic moon;
just a dog
that can’t be fixed
like wedding bells
after they’re struck
dumb,
that were never really
there.
*****
Livio Farallo is co-founder/co-editor of Slipstream. His work has appeared in The Cardiff Review, The Cordite Review, Misfit, Ranger, Poetry Salzburg Review and elsewhere.
