COUNTERCLOCKWISE IN NEW YORK

Standard time lobs a moon
over the window. Silver hairs
scribble in the drain.
The hairdryer, a sirocco
from the Sahara
blows about my head
exhaling hot rose petals.
You shave your stubble
as a meteorologist dangles
rain cloud decals
over New York.
On this Sunday of October,
God moves an hour from evening
to morning.
pulling daylight,
skillfully prying time loose,
with barely a dentist's
small crack of tooth,
without switching yesterday.
As the forecaster instructs,
we fall back
into a gap
our tongues briefly probe
tasting salt and iron, before
filling with bread and jam.
Archangel, you snap a battery
in the smoke detector as I burn
toast and say, "we're safe"
grinning with cherub lips,
winged pink pillows. You hug
the firebug, boogie with cats
that appear to investigate
the hullabaloo. Stooping,
clucking to the night creatures
who lure us back to bed.
Daybreak's back
arcs
over crisp sheets,
meowing in your ear;
rubbing as it passes
counterclockwise.

ETERNITY

From a severed branch,
yellow eyes watch,
ready to choose
which footsteps to heed---
rapt in foreplay
of hunting.
wrapped in camouflage
of near perfection.
What should happen next
never does: strutting
wings extended
to the female.
Dusk menaces
above white breasts
brown banded.
Against bark hardened
by many seasons, amid stumps
of oak and ash, the owl's
hooked-steel beak and claws clutch,
cloaked weapons
against an unattainable lemming.
A mouse scuttles.
A snake coils, gripping its tail.

VOID ON SPRING STREET

Matthias stands below my window
collecting drops of blood from an unidentified source
He is calm about this and requests my opinion on vampires

A passerby laughs and tells how I defected from such colorful rites
Finding comfort, instead, in tears
Which he believes I seek in exchange of words, touch or emotion

Color has no bearing, I remark
As I ponder the ragged edge on my window sill
Wondering if Matthias could use a second source
For his collection below

JAZZ MANOUCHE

It was expected you would close the door,
jazz charging the room like lovers
without inhibition,
winding, pulsing, peaking,
splattering its climax against the door
and along the burgundy walls of your office.

You were writing here.

The warm glow of the fire flushing your cheeks;
my presence yet realized
and I watch, silently, as you rise
and slide the door outward, latching;
muting the notes I chose for you.

IF TODAY WERE LIKE YESTERDAY

A few kisses ago,
I stood beneath the cloudless night sky and your green glint of love;
looking away under the sheen of pink skin,
releasing the reigns of sensibility.

Stars fell behind your back
and I was there to witness them,
though they are but a memory now
behind the fog that burns a path in the sky this time of night.

Later, when my life is through,
my angels will ask me to recall
our time that night under the stars and cover of love
and I shall tell them I kissed the one I hoped to kiss forever.