Opening

This bar grew from stone and wood,
russet and cream.
Trees lean on the porch, nonchalant.
I'll take what he's having.
Hear: phrases sung from in-between. 
        	Strange babies, 
        	microphones desirous of lips.

Buddy's car was having trouble, 
brakes like grinding teeth.
Overhearing, someone fixed it 
without saying a thing.

One table collects candles from the others;
they divine in flames reams of words,
faces Midas-oiled.
Without power, the set moves acoustic. 
        	Two inscribe a circle: their voices are caves,
cloisters of scarce-seen motes. Light falls far from here.
Guitars've outgrown us. Drums move inward.

I touch you, in the way it was before language,
and my lungs brachiate into song.

Recommended

The Keeper

Mom and Dad each take one of my hands and squeeze so tightly it is as if they’re holding on to the one thing they have left. My hands feel cold inside theirs, cupped palms that should fit neatly but don’t . . .

House-Sitting/In Joy’s Bed

Months ago we woke snorting up brown and lime green snot We held hands and laughed about it lay beside each other in bed Took turns soaking the sheets with contagious sweat At the bleating horn of the other’s alarm on mornings he or I could have slept in Instead, grabbing at the other before the day tore away to laces undone fumbling down Livingstone Street’s steps Cold feet scalded sweetly on hot water bottles sainted long johns undershorts worn three days in a row piles of clean and dirty laundry on the floor The first night unpacked we lay on the bed looked out the window to ocean cranes The mattress didn’t spring it absorbed our shapes When he and I were in it it was hard to roll around so we pressed legs to legs licked each other like ice cream cones lost hairs in the sheets held on while we drifted off  . . .