Trespass (3 page)

       
the pillows like

       
bodies, all night I'm wasteful

       
with lamplight

G
UEST
R
OOM

       
A bed too short,

       
our feet slide out

       
and cup the brass

       
footboard, cool

       
in our concaves, what

       
my father would do

       
to find us: curled

       
fiddleheads, one

       
cochlea intricate

       
as fist, oil slicked

       
metallic on pond

       
our bodies'

       
edges imbricate, in

       
the morning we

       
divide and in a year

       
we separate.

PART TWO

S
EPARATION

I

       
I want to say something

       
about sabotage. How you

       
designed it.

       
I am scooping dry food

       
to a deaf cat, no longer

       
in our kitchen, the old marble

       
mantle I left

       
vacant,

       
remember when greens of spruce

       
brought indoors

       
made us suffer the winter less?

 

II

       
What hurts

       
the most?     The kept

       
breath? Geese

       
cutting the pond? I came

       
to know

       
in hard Texas heat you found

       
him,

       
back east the roads twice salted cracked

       
in places, I played on loop

       
carols of mystery,

       
O

       
magnum mysterium
, then

       
acute ice,

       
and common rain

 

III

       
The sun on the avenue

       
is bright, veneers

       
of antique chests at the outdoor flea

       
shine like chestnut skins,

       
a gray sparkle lifts

       
from costume jewelry.

       
Knowing you are browsing

       
cheap Swedish furniture

       
makes me feel,

       
sturdier?

 

IV

       
I want to solder

       
the fragile things, pour

       
liquid alloy into me or

       
exit metaphor

       
altogether,

                    
straw is just straw,

       
not hair,

       
not blond tin,

       
it's dull and dirty, grass

       
is young under straw, breaks

       
capsules, the shredded

       
chaff becomes

       
dirt. I could

       
be these things.

       
Dirt.

       
Shredded.

       
Nothing seems

       
degradable. Memory is still

       
of you—morning, naked, peeling

       
a small orange over

       
a silver bowl.

       
My teeth hurt,

       
the citrus and the metal.

 

V

       
I try to forget you every day

       
but Lauren and I were discussing

       
superpowers and she said

       
she would like to have super strength,

       
I thought I'd like teleportation

       
but then thought telepathy—to read

       
your mind—but Lauren said ignorance

       
is bliss, I had to agree. We thought

       
Spiderman had it right with scaling walls

       
which made me think of Luc in Aix

       
who climbed building façades for sport,

       
often shirtless, Lauren thought

       
that was super strength but I said no it's more like

       
super attachment and I saw the power

       
I kept giving you.

 

VI

       
I see you as a boy

       
at the community garden

       
lacing tomato stems, your hands

       
quick with twine. I watch

       
the direct daydream

       
of your stare, how

       
your green eyes cycle

       
light. You mind the squash curls

       
before you race out the gate

       
shoelaces wild on the pavement

       
snap like jacks.

 

VII

       
You say you need

       
time yet I keep

       
coming back

       
isn't my heart

       
the dumbest kid

       
in the class

       
the dirty kid who

       
no one wants

       
to sit next to but he

       
reaches out with gum

       
and granola bars and

       
they scratch into his desk

       
with the needle

       
from a math compass

       
they ink “THINK SOAP”

       
on the beige enamel of his locker

       
he doesn't know

       
anything better just

       
days when Xander

       
is absent and the room

       
falls quiet he thinks

       
in the moments

       
when chalk scrapes

       
a music of slate

       
a sparkle of white

       
dust it's all radiant theater

       
this escape might make

       
him happy that the kids

       
love him and he

       
has good lunches

       
and he swings for hours

       
upside down from the monkey bars

       
his head pendulous

       
just above chipped-up

       
wood as his shadow

       
draws giant totems

       
on the grass shrinking

       
and growing shrinking

       
and growing for hours

       
he could do that

       
as blood charges his head

       
and he feels

       
he might pass out

       
from the wild joy

       
he is a bell clanging

       
as if to call everyone

       
and shout this is all

       
my body can do

       
up this high

       
you can't touch me

       
as long as I keep pumping

       
my skinny arms.

 

VIII

       
Chestnuts harden in spiky

       
green husks, my brothers and I

       
would walk the driveway

       
in our socks, braved it

       
under the chestnut tree

       
and you give me

       
a husk to hold

       
suffer its unkindness.

 

IX

       
It's been five weeks

       
since I left you and I leave

       
the family brunch, pass

       
the hidden plastic eggs.

       
Today the tomb

       
is not empty, the stone

       
still wedged in. I can't go on

       
distracting myself

       
from the smell

       
of burial spices

       
the disturbed earth, you

       
have not come back.

 

X

       
Fridays are the hardest.

       
Your body moves through

       
happy hours without

       
me, I can't even

       
chart you,

                      
I want

       
to see the lines

       
you make

       
on the map of the city,

       
if they cross the lines

       
I make, do we

       
create a pattern

       
unknowingly,

                      
does my finger

       
run down the glass

       
at the table you just left

       
at the café on Dekalb? We are

       
no longer destinations,

       
single blinking dots.

 

XI

       
If I forget, remind me

       
when we drove

       
past the dry roadside

       
farms, remind me when I looked out

       
on the neat

       
wheels of hay, my breathing

       
hard then stilled, what you never said

       
when I wiped my face,

       
remind me of your

       
neglect and the long ditches

       
and if I forget the annulling

       
of the day, if I want a night

       
with you, let that car ride

       
remind me.

 

XII

       
Our first time back together,

       
magnets, my body

       
pushed into you and your eyes

       
rolled back. The second time

       
I stared at your feet

       
while I sucked you off

       
the small muscles

       
in my calves squeezed

       
and released.

       
The heart?

       
The first position of union, the second

       
something polar,

       
getting back to your place

       
that first time