Beneath the Milk Green Sun
i
beneath a milk green sun you lifted your glass first
between pauses a pastis for another bone-brittle year
as the poplars shared their agony in the cracks between us
words drunk in a sink bowl filled with milkfish before the funeral
cum left cakey on the sheets like brittle batter as we avoided
the inevitable distaste dripped into our lungs of her death
and spooned longing into our mouths before the wake
her burial unbearable in the green breeze
as the hideous eulogy and trees snuck away in a bending
there is no end to the cousins and cats in the alley, mourning
ii
allow the finite stars to go cascading
allow your hands to spread calculations
pasteurize translations on the damp body of soap
rim the bathtub as both coffin and console
diary the self meandering over marauding cracks
let in the damp and the overused
submarine the expanse bowed the bookcase belly
she taught you that while alive
“The imaginative dust, twice as long as your lecture” she once said
“Twice I returned from a finite shore”
“Thrice I ventured the green light,”
the distance no fun at all as we paddle toward the indistinct in our mind
did we wade long alone when the tide turned toward us epileptic?
iii
that first pastis of the year lingers now like a rash
yours was the first grave dug under the balustrade beacon of the new year
“Now I'm ready for a round of evening pétanque,”
“Then the dispensation of the light,”
our tongues lift the equestrian hoof-flying sense of nonsense stuck in our throats
when you lift your glass first beneath the milky sun later in the year
and left the room, crossed into the afternoon light and disrobed your belief
and each of us was left alone in the blank
tulips limp in the knees as petal by petal light falls as we chat
like lost teenagers nibbling on the other’s heart one kernel at a time
above us the moon caught in the bicep of a tree’s arm
a lunar tooth broken haphazardly
still hanging the blue root of the sky’s shroud
the bad luck of the genetics of rotten teeth,
are lives any different?
as we walk away from the grave
one heart scampering at a time
