Alphabet City

While observing her ass in the mirror, I thought,
I wonder how the goldfish are doing?

Chagall 2019

I am awestruck by how hair absorbs water
Who designed such a flawless pairing?

Rainbows hatch in the falling beads,
the cascade of droplets
from the crown of the head
of the celebrant bent back

dipped to touch the water

Sunlight would find its way through
more readily then

Now most halos are
merely astigmatism

not magic

Chagall 2019

Peel off this haze,
help me to feel the rain

The rush of floodwater
compels me

Release, be awash!

Fingertips just miss,
they slip in the mist

Goodbye outstretched hand

Alone in the eddy, in the swirl
hunkered in, clenched down
on the tiller tightly

(Awaiting the falls)

I am the speck in the din of the roar,
a glint of ice in the throes of infernos

A tone resonates…overtones,
poignant intervals – the lost umbilical chord,
a heavenly chorale of angels afire with passion
awash in powder-blue dew

Life,
People

(Love is long)

Love is largest

Chagall 2019

Alone,
this sheet
of debris
falling in
black space
all around
everything
fallen
in situ
such so
we cannot know

how high were we before –
before descent
was a go…

how long ago?

before the pain
that precipitates
this – our longing for torpor

for deep sleep

at the edge
where existence ends
will we ricochet
and ascend?

Chagall 2019
 

I pretend today
that grandma’s alive,
in her flat just across
the bridge

It’s morning and
she’s having tea
with babka and butter
while sitting at
her front-room window
facing the life on the street
one floor below

She hums old folk tunes,
short lilts of melody with each exhale
punctuated now and then by a sip

I will call her today to tell her that I love her and
that Isabella and I will pick her up Friday at noon
to spend the weekend

To see the colors
of the fallen leaves

Chagall 2019

…so many little big bangs…

Chagall 2019

Years have passed, you’re still beautiful,
age brings deep rich hue to the wood,
the lathed curves of tender fingers,
delicious lines along the lithe
supple runs, breasts to abdomen

Inside of you – an Escher curve,
I traverse this rapture alone,
endure ice-blue twists, dip your soul,
to arrive at a lava melt
that cools and hardens, conceals you

To break through I let out a long bellow,
deep and rich resonance massages us,
you gradually soften to engulf me,
a warm blanket against fierce tempest wind
that will repel and expel me again

Once again,
yet again

In time droplets gather
Fine dew along the seam

A teardrop trapped in a lash
eventually falls

Chagall 2019

she repeated over and over
…three points cut a line, three points cut a line…
as if in delirium – orgasm’s throe

and I’d say to her that two points determine a line,
every middle-schooler knows

only for the Euclidean
she’d tease, her eyes rolling back

Chagall 2019

There – along the crease!

Incriminating evidence.

Chagall 2019

they asked could I help to get her out,
she – prone fetal within a cocoon under blankets,
deep beneath ground in the cave’s recess

(how far can the heart burrow?)

I excavate a deep and long core,
slowing as I near her, for fear
I will damage her, close there
to the edge

(an onion-skin of spun-silk separates us)

poke through and breathe, I say
taste the air and the light…

(…or let it collapse behind you, I think I hear her say)

so near there, just on the other side,
I ascend to gain foothold, I yell Stand back!
and I kick through

silver fragments of cocoon float into the core of light
exposed through the portal beneath my foot

she is covered in a fine dust, a cowl of rebirth,
I extend my hand to her, she takes it, and we ascend
slowly to the surface

Chagall 2019