The New Bridge
as the vein runs
under fragile reconstructions
of what was holding us together
the river made of time and water
I walk beside the swing of your pulse
and your heart pumps
in both directions at once
the lines of the landscape
run through me to somewhere else
sight lines shriek into the present
loyalties tattooed in rose and gold
stop my mouth for
we are water and time
runs through us
the river sings between be-
tween rose and gold the blood
runs between us outlines of fish
in the shadows slipping green
on this side of the river we and on that side they
The Bureau for the Suspension of Control
still
at eye level a hand
caught in a gesture
of impatience
held
two floors up
stepping from the lift a foot
hovers over nylon pile
only the corner of a paper falls
in the breeze failing
as the air con
stops control frozen
in the decay of sound
stopped at the controls
on the fifteenth floor
a hand
rests on a keyboard
electricity clogs wires
digital breath
hangs in the phones
Wave
I woke up with an ache the size of a continent
etched on a glass and the water
behind it in my throat, spiny fish
swimming through my fingers. The miles
ticked over crossings of arteries, the slow
pump round limbs thickened by winter
till my fingers melted into water, my neck
became a ripple, shoulders slid
into waves, my blood turned cold as water
rushed in my ears. Wolves ran back to the sea
as whales. It doesn’t end in ice or fire
but in drifting under the glassy cool,
translucent. You stopped thinking of me
but I wouldn’t disappear: a form caught like a fossil
turned until the day passed through it.