All the ambitions I have had, I have reached or given up.
I look at you now and hear all my own words expiring.
An unwritten poem, I don’t know how, shadows you.
All the breaths I have had I have used to write lines
that almost poured flutesong all over the sky, that made me
want to leap, lurch, dance, and all my hungers, I let them grow
in my gut like pearls in mollusks, like skipping stones that want
to skim all the parts of you my hands don’t dare to touch,
and I admit my desire has approached the space between us
even as I hide from bill collectors, from rivers I would drown in,
because seeing you again has pulled me apart. Though we’ve had
leaks like defective boats, a song I could never play
had meanings I didn’t mean but I can be mean like
someone cutting in line to climb up a diving board,
only to hesitate at the top and climb back down despite a chorus
of mocking, but oh, I’ve had other places to go, other words
I meant to say, words that would cool these fires if they could,
words that would assure I would never leap out of myself
and into you, but I think my desire for sensations is ready to roam,
given the green light, across the alleyways and tributaries on your skin.