Ghazal Poem

Archipelago


This is how the body splits: on a sidewalk I can nearly brush
your arm with mine, the hairs turning like sunflowers to the day.

The last time I saw you, you gave me a knotted rope in a buffet line. Parmesan
scattered across my mouth, you showed me all the ways I could be unbound.

I know my span. I know how far I can skip stones, their ellipses
meandering. Today I’ll miss you by the length of your sternum.

You prefer the howling turbine to the clap of water, or bare feet and cool
September sand. Where I miss songbirds; you miss a clock telling you it’s morning.

Boats are a sobering thought. Even moreso, a man-made
Isthmus, silver and magnetic, stretching its spine in Sunday’s dawn.

You spread yourself on your bed like a patch of wood anemones on the floor
of a forest. You follow the faces of the popcorn ceiling, praying in your career.

I ride a red Varsity to the curves around the red-brick mansions.
Dogs bay at the city’s warbling two-note sirens just as if I was at home.

Yet you’re seeing mountains. Soon Lake Wanaka, New Zealand,
or Mt. Hook, where earth fails to brush the heavens.

I wish to be barefoot and poor, pulling open a fresh lacatan
in a muddy Filipino alley, each breath of me indulging in sweet yellow.

The radio says both doves and pigeons are Columbidae, familial
ménage, the holy and the common—both eat from the crumbs of day.