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