i know i have of you left three hundred and sixty five
odd days and nights in this city to retrace my steps
here where my body has been watered and the hot sun
long has folded up inside of me

and other things too such as the traffic which always
frustrated you and the death toll which is rising and the
number of deaths i could have had hit by a blue hyundai or
a shabby toyota pick up truck

i am as at heart with this city as the orange men collecting
its grime and language that pounds its way into consciousness
i inhabit this city as loved furniture in an old home, a chair
moved from one room to another restless and returned
with every new season.

i inhabit this city as those things broken. toilet bowls and
transformers toys. inconsequential and severe.

eating jaggery after many years

i would like to embrace you with my mouth again
when everything is burning, this moment is a window
to a time when my mother would say there is no peace on this earth
and i would respond you would search heaven no longer
if you could have one taste

he sold it in mounds the color of my skin
he heard the sound of my heart and the beaded gathering
of perspiration beneath my arms
for one taste my body would bloom.

on a road my fingers would taste as warm as the sweetness of tears
the reluctance of money with the sun at its brightest
you dissolve on my fingers.

my mother would say it will not always be summer
again, again. for now my mouth is full and my senses rapt
i will close my eyes. rekindle my blood.

i am certain my heart was misplaced
that the clouds spanning the skies are my membranes
that airplanes in their certainty carve lines of despair
over the landscapes of my tissue

i am sure that one day a tornado will arise
from the grim city and its populace below
and funnel my flabby heart into cotton candy
which children will eat, smacking their lips
and swallow with decision

i am certain there will be nothing else of me
but a sticky sweet fragerance which they will
carry steadily into their future.

i have your books and their pages
which means i have your fingers
and their hands

i have one nose happening in your ear
which means i have every word
you can ever taste

i have in me a wild throbbing
which devours me at night

i have not you. man who has
never seen me

you: a ship setting sail
portentous with soul
scattering recklessly
over a calm sea

this ship with white sails
relieving the dark water
from sullen night
pricks of starlight

in a lighthouse somebody stirs
eyes heavy with ocean
and familiar hands

do you remember that day when

beside the beach you showed me

(and i showed you) and later we

sat by the waves and your nails

were that pink color you paint

only when you are in love-- well

cameron, today you died in a fire

by the beach and i watched your

house go up in flames and i promised

to myself that i would write to you

every day and every day until you

hardened at the center and in years

two boys would play in the sands

and find the shell of my words

which kept you alive like this

imperfect and round like your elbows

like all those features i will never

touch again like this hardened

and gentle and perfectly white.