again and again it is almost
again and again it is wanting
again and again it is hope
again and again it is dancing as light as hammocks, deep as
couches, hungry as groaning old pianos
your colors are not my colors your mouth not my mouth your
language not mine we just sound the same look the same waltz the same stranger
the beat I missed is where? oh there in my oh, bones
I eat your cake you eat my rat poison and it is equally
sweet
I drink your skin you drink my mojo and they are equally
monstrous
I crave your knowledge you crave my cluelessness stranger
stranger stranger
again and again old umbrellas lost
again and again blankets, swamps
again and again refuge, thunder, shouting in the desert
your decades are not my decades your dreamscape is not my
pillowland your stories are ash to my flame roots to my wings whisper to my
deaf deaf ear and there we were missing the go-round missing the locusts and
honey missing the trumpet call how, how could we miss that when all the world
is deafened?
again and again it is almost
again and again it is hope
again and again it is breath as ragged as unswept shards,
singing as tuneless as love can seize, brain fever deep as wounded memory
again and again it is overheard stories, strangers are
plural and speaking strange truths
again and again it is this life, that fierce maroon ache,
those people, those people, those mountains of what? grabbing it with all the
fists and shaking the what?
again and again it is no, yes, how, please, now, never,
drink it, dance it, speak it, shout
born alive
given toes, words, milk, stories
millions of hours to navigate earth by earth
again and again it is sweetness in vinegar, life in these
thorns, shouting through days
so long as we can
stranger