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  Drowning in Air…

is slower

there’s time 

to read the mail

watch TV

steam vegetables

to grasp at love

till air

closes above—

I rise more than three times

to gulp the purer element

you breathe

to me, mere inspiration

I think,

“There must be

something

I can do.”

as my life

flashes before my eyes

stands in the foyer

of the Museum of Modern Art

before a wall

swirling with calligraphy

he thinks

he sees a woman strolling

among the Picassos

he sees a café

with sandwiches

shuffling of feet

subdued chatter of voices

he wears corduroy pants

and a green sweater

the woman wears an orange sweater

mauve skirt

he thinks of things to say

nothing seems appropriate

she moves off through an archway

to another room

he wonders about Picasso

a tune runs through his head

he debates taking the subway

back to East 10th Street

or walking

he thinks about the café

sees another woman

I. Giving

take your clothes off

take your skin off

lay your blood at her feet

a red velvet cloak

bridge with your bones

the chasm of her loss

still not enough

II. From the Fire

who only leaves

can only return

I would return

for you

only

I'm still here

III. Valentine's Day

I don't need to know

why she left me

or why

I will return to an empty apartment

stop a drafty window

with a torn scarf

or why my cells unglue

dissolve their chains

but what is a white plastic straw doing

on that gray-flecked square

of this linoleum floor?

I slapped the ice cream off

the angel's cone

his cherubic calm was shaken

when I grabbed his jacket

in both manacled hands

wrenching with furious strength

his ear to my mouth

rasping between clenched teeth

      How could you leave me

            handcuffed  for an hour

       With all these Nazis

        Running around?

        I don't care if they're friendly

         They're still Nazis! 

my freckled mate

I don my drool suit and clown cleats

not just to frisk your high school chassis

but for your Brooklyn blood smoke

and family candy

whisk us to indigo beach

electric boondocks

where slingshot sea-gulls

surf paradigms

sing me those rip-rap blues

and baste some semperfish

O avocado mine

rub the mudblind

from my subway glass

and dunk my dandelion   

"Hold On." says the driver

as the bus lurches forward

"But I'm not supposed to be on Lombard Street. 

I need the 18 L."

She says, "This is the 18 L."

Exiting on Lombard Street

I'm nowhere.    

far black depths

memory of a dream

uprushing

breaking the surface

at a cymbal crash

shocked by this strange 

familiar world

she cradled my head

murmuring comfort

until the new world

joined the old

in sudden focus

accepting joy

In the sluggish tide of legal documents

pushed with the garbage

of crime and politics,

twenty-eight years of marriage

washes through the hands

of lawyers and legal secretaries

to the supreme court.

In waivers, stipulations, disclosures,

summonses, allegations, depositions,

appraisals, actuarial computations

the inner-life of a family

is fed to the grindstones of jurisprudence.

So is the severance severed

and every street and alleyway

of marriage duly sealed;

marked off with barriers.

Only the traffic of the court

connects us now

and even that must end

leaving two citizens

tasting strange sunlight

full of empty freedom

and unquiet memories.

sliding faster

through films of time

than memory can follow

in the reversed telescope

we dwindle to stick figures

in a virtual landscape

they send reports

from distant landsof marble terraces

washed by raveled waves

our consolations:

theater seats

rockers by the fire

wool gathering and

quiet conversation

seldom squinting

into the darkness

beyond the stair