January 21, 2012

For a time I thought it was a sin to be mortal 

To greet the world and leave it

If I weren't a claustrophobe 

I'd live like Emily Dickinson then no one 

Including you would know whether or not 

My thighs are the size of an amphitheater but January wanes 

As all things wane in midtown after dark after

The onset of ambivalence

Where promises rise and fall like breath in the body

Where strangers commit you to memory against your will

Where everybody's got something to sell

At a discount something to tell 

At a discount. I scan the sky for the moon and find her

Figure is a crescent curled in around stars who are

Still and unresponsive.

Below the snow is iridescent

On the trees where your promises dried and fell

With November's frondescence.