Miles- for a friend

It’s warm, like the
Charlie Brown Christmas song–
shakers and snowflakes
resembling the sensation of
you and long hours of
front seat conversations,
trying to hide dog breath
and pimples while you lean in
close and tell me
about spirals and atoms.
And there’s so much there
to play with—tones and words
and tangible snowflakes, that
it’s overwhelming: the spiral
and your voice. I want to
hold it, traveling through
tunnels and the quantum abyss
together. (But it gets complex
when you’re channeling Miles Davis.)

Cutting through static night

Cutting through static night, a plane flies

while you mumble breaths and

think of scenes with someone else.

In solitary sleep, bareness engulfs me

and you too are soft; unaided and striking;

on your own, and yet how ironic it all seems!

This fleshy arm spun around a tired, frumpy

clump of nothing really, save some

weathered down that seeps through little

holes you meddle with mechanically.

Who am I tonight? It’s your pick between

characters who beat and touch–

the ones who ignored you and the others

who never said much. I’ll just let you

do the talking and help you forget

those doors that quietly unhinge in tip-toed

stillness– the 5-o-clock get-always and

sad hours when we wake at once together again,

empty. You’re mine, and despite gentlemen

who gruffly grab and push us to

the side, tomorrow evening, alas,

it’s me with whom you’ll sigh, and say

“good night.”