My Heart and the Nonsense

Come back, revelry, I said, but she heard

memory. I’d like to be more like the seals

or the kelp, more undulant and seaward,

but I’m a land mammal with two offspring,

and the younger has a fever. Last night

he fell asleep on my shoulder, his breathing

downshifted into the hot, animal

weight of him. It’s a slick time of year.

Rust blooms on the tricycle’s

chrome and obscures reflection—

the relief of one less mirror.

Time future and time past are present

here, where I suck the snot from Cosmo’s nose

with my mouth. Spring doesn’t mean

what it used to mean, a string of ohs! and oh,

yesses. I remember the ER doc

who said, I know when spring is here because

the teens start coming in with broken jaws

and STDs. Seagulls scream maniacally,

their frenzy amplified across the water.

In the foreground, curved like an apostrophe,

a house finch sips from a puddle of morning

rain on the picnic table. Rain falls

until it is not rain. Pleasure gives no warning

and then is pain. I bonked my head on the humming-

bird feeder and now my hair is gunked

with sugar water. All the moments coming

to this one, and now this one’s gone—ahead

of me, looking back, then turning away

and running faster. Bad dog. The day’s a bed

I don’t get to lie down in. Instead, running

late, I wash Oola’s hair,

negotiate peace, remembering

a party. There was a pool on the roof

so it was a pool party. I mean, a roof party.

Rough acquaintances of my youth

gyrated on the parapet. I had no fear

of missing out, for I was in it, and so well fit

for decadence. Perfect mixtape. Freezer

full of sweating bottles. Bodies full of hips,

eyes, and lips. And everyone so

thirsty, photogenic, and gymnastic.

Somebody jostled my arm; I jostled

somebody in turn. Our tender jostling.

We took turns in the restroom. Hot little

boxes of light, private convo terrariums.

Our voices sweetened in the humidity. We

were a large part of the galaxy. Tongues

learning the shallows of other mouths, versed

in the nameless desires that stir there

each approaching the precision of thirst.

I went home with someone and each of that someone’s

roommates had come home with someone.

Spring in Brooklyn. Doors closed, windows open.

Now, this morning, my shirt too wrinkled for my job

steams above the bath. This becomes that

as suddenly as being robbed.

And yet the new this contains that, is vast,

multitudinous, expanding like rising dough,

fermentation, a relationship! That

morning, this evening, this conundrum,

that motorboat, this knot I learned, this

grapefruit, that juicer, this transition

of power, that strange lump on my back,

this problem I have, this thing I need help with,

this fucking guy, and that one, Jesus, that

Jesus, this weather we’ve been having, this day, that us,

this blank of my life, that jury, this coffee,

that redemption, this sip, that split, this it, this

tongue, that slip of it, this beast, that undone

bit of me, those slippery plums, this rush,

this sun, this jingle of keys, that cum,

that blood, that shit, that piss,

this sudden fit of peace, this please.

Please, this. This peace. This, this…