crooked as corkscrews

Pour yourself into me and I will not let a drop of you hit the ground.

There was a forest fire in his chest that I would never have the water to put out.
So I held his hand and I burned with him.

you politely ask me not to die and i promise not to
right from the beginning — a relationship based on
good sense and thoughtfulness in little things

i would like to be loved for such simple attainments
as breathing regularly and not falling down too often
or because my eyes are brown or my father left-handed

and to be on the safe side i wouldn’t mind if somehow
i became entangled in your perception of admirable objects
so you might say to yourself: i have recently noticed

how superbly situated the empire state building is
how it looms up suddenly behind cemeteries and rivers
so far away you could touch it — therefore i love you

part of me fears that some moron is already plotting
to tear down the empire state building and replace it
with a block of staten island mother/daughter houses

just as part of me fears that if you love me for my cleanliness
i will grow filthy if you admire my elegant clothes
i’ll start wearing shirts with sailboats on them

but i have decided to become a public beach an opera house
a regularly scheduled flight — something that can’t help being
in the right place at the right time — come take your seat

we’ll raise the curtain fill the house start the engines
fly off into the sunrise, the spire of the empire state
the last sight on the horizon as the earth begins to curve

Reminiscing in the drizzle of Portland, I notice
the ring that's landed on your finger, a massive
insect of glitter, a chandelier shining at the end

of a long tunnel. Thirteen years ago, you hid the hurt
in your voice under a blanket and said there's two kinds
of women—those you write poems about

and those you don't. It's true. I never brought you
a bouquet of sonnets, or served you haiku in bed.
My idea of courtship was tapping Jane's Addiction

lyrics in Morse code on your window at three A.M.,
whiskey doing push-ups on my breath. But I worked
within the confines of my character, cast

as the bad boy in your life, the Magellan
of your dark side. We don't have a past so much
as a bunch of electricity and liquor, power

never put to good use. What we had together
makes it sound like a virus, as if we caught
one another like colds, and desire was merely

a symptom that could be treated with soup
and lots of sex. Gliding beside you now,
I feel like the Benjamin Franklin of monogamy,

as if I invented it, but I'm still not immune
to your waterfall scent, still haven't developed
antibodies for your smile. I don't know how long

regret existed before humans stuck a word on it.
I don't know how many paper towels it would take
to wipe up the Pacific Ocean, or why the light

of a candle being blown out travels faster
than the luminescence of one that's just been lit,
but I do know that all our huffing and puffing

into each other's ears—as if the brain was a trick
birthday candle—didn't make the silence
any easier to navigate. I'm sorry all the kisses

I scrawled on your neck were written
in disappearing ink. Sometimes I thought of you
so hard one of your legs would pop out

of my ear hole, and when I was sleeping, you'd press
your face against the porthole of my submarine.
I'm sorry this poem has taken thirteen years

to reach you. I wish that just once, instead of skidding
off the shoulder blade's precipice and joyriding
over flesh, we'd put our hands away like chocolate

to be saved for later, and deciphered the calligraphy
of each other's eyelashes, translated a paragraph
from the volumes of what couldn't be said.

1. when i was in high school, i had to memorize the
conjugation of the latin verb “to love.”

2. i have no idea what happened to my mother’s wedding
ring. last night at 12:17 am, i really needed to know.

3. “beautiful” and “amazing” just mean “beautiful” and
“amazing.” nothing more.

4. i memorized the latin verb by singing the forms to the
tune of “the mexican hat dance”:

amo
amas
amat

amamus
amatis
amant

5. someone called at 1:19 in the morning. the area code is
from somewhere in arizona. i don’t think i know anyone
in arizona. there wasn’t a message.

6. if someone lets you sleep over and has to go to work while
you’re still asleep and they let you sleep in even though
they don’t really know you, it’s nice to leave a thank you
note. or make their bed.

7. i haven’t been beautiful in days and i need more sleep.
don’t think about it too much. it doesn’t mean a thing.

8. i have had my shirts altered so i can wear my heart on my
sleeve.

9. told me i’m beautiful and amazing and where are you,
who told me i’m beautiful and amazing, next time please
write it down, i will be beautiful all day after i make the
bed, amazing after i throw the latex away; how is it, the
everywhere of our hands and no trace of handwriting anywhere

10. i still sing:

amo
amas
amat

amamus
amatis
amant