– for Megan Thoma

 
I'm writing this with my finger,

dipped in the pulp

of my own clotting blood

on the concrete

wall of a parking garage.
The air was a blurry

headache the night

I first saw you,

skin aglow like starlight

on a sidewalk,

some candle

I lack irradiating

the stained-glass sea

in your eyes.
I don't remember what bite

or voodoo narrowed

me to this undying season

of wanting. I only

know I'm hunger. I'd swallow

myself if I could.

I can feel myself

decomposing. I shake,

and shake.
I'm an orchestra of lurches,

a spell of falling,

I couldn't help but tilt

toward you, but what amazed

my wilting mind

was that you saw

the telltale angle

of my stumble,

heard the primal

deep of my smeared

excuse for language.

You knew what

I was and took

me home anyway.

In this I might be no

different than any man.
Here is something no

other human knows:

every night in the sting

of cool right before dawn

we gather, all over,

a rotting congregation.

Some compass

in us inclines

our faces toward Pluto,

and we will turn

toward it as one

and hum a graveled,

shivering hymn.

It has no words.
Last night I shuffled

not to the pallid

rooftop where we gather

but wavered

outside your window

as you slept and sang,

not to the underworld,

but to you. I'm

in orbit around something

new. I'm now something

other than what my body

demands of me. Sweet,

I love you for more

than your brain.

What other man

has ever said that?