Before changing channels

I fall in love

with you but the

pixels are not

resolute enough

to show me the colors

of your eyes.

It wears me out,

these 30 second

bursts of

hopelessness.

I lay down

and die in the flood

.

Your red dress fits against

your skin better than my hands

ever will. A flag of fire.

Isn't it innate, the surrender

that follows? I do not have words

to fit my mouth. My tongue breaks

into sparks. You were right, I never know

where I am going but there is smoke

in the trails along your collar bones;

I follow the devastation into

the flames. Heat deformed kisses

shatter in this blasted landscape,

shimmering against the

reflections of desire.

My breath condenses into the prayers

of a pink morning rising beyond

the horizon of your charcoal hair.

Falling back into the weight

of ash and embers I sift through

the remains for something to hold onto

.

Can you play the violin?

It doesn't have to be well,

it is enough to pull lament

from a loose collection of

notes, or we could just hum.

Can your eyes be blue or grey

or brown, any color of water

that I might hide in.

There never was a shore line

immutable in its desire to erode.

Let there be a wisp of atmosphere,

the thinnest thread of a breath

we can share, me on one end you

on the other pulling until

the stories on our lips meet

.

Counting crows in the silvered

night, unfolding memories rummaging

unsure. Leaving birdland glowing red

hoping the eye lands somewhere soft.

TV shadows flick between teeth.

I tongued the lip's odd reason,

a pledge and a raise to a

flagrant desire. A mouth without

hands, the dog-eyed silence of

light falling through snow. This

contribution of ghosts held

close without rest.

Like a splayed chest that flowers,

opening into scented pleas.

knowing you enter me each time

as molecules held tight in tiny purses.

I will hold the flashlight if you will dance

.