(my neck knows knuckles-
do your fingers remember the grip
like a wedding wring imprint
and later with soaked regret coughed you
a reprint of a sulking pulse?
 
i’m sure you put me to paper.)
 
i told you once that valentine’s day
should take place in july
(the melody that months sing,
julius comes ruby,
february in a sling)
how midsummer’s nights mean
salted map making
in linen and jeans
coiled carefully
beneath our names and shedding skin.
 
i felt you in winds and itches
on the back of my head
and how i sat suspended for you
in the bresson doorways
of my romantic imagination
waiting for animation.
 
i wanted to write you a letter
that you could stain and smudge,
with a restless skeleton
writhing peaks out of pencil skirts
and cable knits
with thighs like snowcaps,
that screamed with wanton thinness
the importance of presence.
 
strange,
you’re still in all my dreams.
the pictures are more pleasing
when i complete your split ends
when spring night streets
stop gleaming,
ever baked with a promise
of the meaningful fleeting. 
 
my father knows more about fixed mortgages
and fixed bayonets than i can ever learn
but i still fight for immer gelb summer nights
where still air quiets the world to hold
wet grass on warm feet in wide plains
and interlocked fingers reach for 
cold activated cans and earnestly scratch
shared mosquito stigmata.