1
no singing pours out onto the sidewalk stood our dream,
no cowardly wind crests, no waiting for a nod to leave,
no bright sun beckons and no hollow moon howls and we are
not moving on but engulfed by out loneliness as the bus stops

2
when every past address and passage is a full new concept,
when pleasures swirl in our buzzing and the past goes void,
when we may heave aside all our boldly scribbled letters and
the stakes are never be as high as us, and loom no longer or stare us down,
and we don’t need to run or chase or pant or run each other out of the room

3
I know we beat each other up over that fight we had and we have to
know that all the places we made love are not places anymore
know they are places that have become owned by others
and get to be in our dreams now
and in our dreams is some remaking,
more beautiful than knowing
it is not where you are

4
and shown off in the cool fizz below the rim of your drink
revealed over the waking and rousing and routine of our short time
as unwitting as folly in theater: we stared at mad overspent days and
revealed by the action of our sliding, on the gray ice of a cold morning
revealed

5
as was said, as if any relocation could really seal the deal,
as if those spheres we rode and left taught us something about
departing but not thinking of ourselves as apart
just like on that late summer night before,
when we kept quiet in the warm rain
like calm shadows as we were caught
and slid longingly into night

6
we hang no longer and no closer than ever, which means
we are no closer to love, which is the only way to escape
the ugly luster of our reconcile, we hang separately, uncontained
limited to only what appears in memory’s grainy image

7
on a street in a city I do not know
your toes curl over the edge of some concrete curb, waiting to pass the traffic,
and we are alone and my hands are empty and elsewhere
than where your rutted street is transfixed and your heart throbs,
and we have learned how the odds stack up and occupy
this, our world that grows

8
there was the second when I held you, before we split
and took our brief and gentle steps and parted into dusk,
and that second will live on forever,
no matter who goes back to which clouds
and what lives continue in unsung dust and unexpected lift,
there will always be that second, of embrace and division,
never has and never will be part of any dream

9
and our affection remains stamped on the city
where our kissing on the edge of the bay was sudden, and
where we avoided the rush of sleep and drove winding pavement
and you knew where we were headed and we did not vanish,
where we could not have vanished even if to vanish was what we wanted
and also separately now a real heat and
wind unfurls to us a more exacting place
than together we had been

From our table by the window we watch a constant
procession of leashed Poodles, Collies, Corgis and mutts
on Charles Street’s cracked brick sidewalk, one Collie
wears a flag tucked into its star-studded collar and a fat
man in baggy shorts wears a red, white and blue USA
top hat, our waitress recites house specials like poetry:
Vino Nobile Corte Alla Flora, Funghi
Portobello, Minestrone di Vedura, Argosta,
we sip our wine, across the street three starfish
decorate the sash of third story apartment windows.

Already there are crowds on Charles and Chestnut
moving to the river for the concert and fireworks,
a flag that once flew over Kandahar drapes the band shell
on the Esplanade where the Boston Pops will play
Stars and Stripes Forever, in the Back Bay a gigantic flag
hangs high on the old Hancock Building, its field of stars
as big as the restaurant while inside away from the heat on brick
and cobblestone we enjoy our minestrone and argosta.

As we eat three fighter jets roar over in formation,
soon fireworks brighter than stars will light Boston,
a cannonade of thunder and fire too much like real artillery
or like the cannonballs over Boston Harbor in the Revolution,
for all the noise it’s hard to believe in God or anything at all—
the tables at Toscano are full while outside grayness
descends into humid night, all of us happy
to at least have a holiday with good wine.