These poems and letters were written while living in Spain (Barcelona and Oliva) and Los Angeles (Woodland Hills, Santa Monica, DTLA, Beverly Glen) in 2017 and 2018.
I've shared seven of the poems below. Subscribers can view all 27.
One
Dear Danielle,
The night air's made me think of you. Specifically, one night in May of 1986 when I walked you home. We were on the precipice of love — or deep admiration — or infatuation... I don't know.
I remember we walked under the electrical field and through the parking lot near Talbot and Blake.
Between us and your parents' house, there was a park with a playground and that building that they'd buried beneath a grass-covered hill. Me and the other neighborhood boys would ride up and down it on our bmx bikes, crippling the summers 'til all they could do was crawl. Time doesn't pass like that anymore, at least not for me. There are no more new memories being made--just infrequent smells and sounds casting translucent mirages that disappear before I can firmly place them.
It's so unusual for me to be able to pinpoint one's origin so precisely:
A summer —
a month —
a girl —
a walk —
a longing.
I know that you're with someone else now. This isn't about that.
I sometimes wonder if I ever pass through the mind of former loves, and have told myself that should it ever happen in my own head, that I'd reach out and let her know.
I'm almost fifty, now, and I have not kept that promise, for this is the first such letter that I've sent after writing. It's the second time you've been that in my life, the other being my first kiss. (Did you know that, or did I hide it from you, ashamed it was coming so late in my youth?)
I've only one other memory of us together, leaving the Willow theatre after a double bill. You and I have discussed that one before, but not the night currently on my mind. Though it would sadden me to learn that you've no recollection of this night we spent together, I understand that that's the most likely reality.
If I am right, and upon receiving this letter, you decide to respond, lie.
Fondly,
D.
Six
My lover lives in the rhymes I speak to dogs and small children. They flow as I lower to haunches and move lips to ear.
Can her energy outlast my loneliness and isolation? Be at my side, little one, and we all, us three, will rise.
Eleven
A woman. A nice woman. A nice, beautiful woman. A very nice, beautiful woman. It's going to be different this time. A very nice, beautiful woman with child. A family. A family of three. A very happy family of three. A very happy family of three on vacation. A tragedy. A tragedy while walking. A tragedy while walking on vacation. A couple. A morose couple. A morose, inconsolable couple. A divorce. A miserable divorce. A miserable divorce that goes on for years. Someone new. Meeting someone new. Learning to forgive so you can meet someone new. Learning to forgive so you can trust someone new. Learning to meet and trust someone new. A woman. A nice woman. A very nice woman. It's going to be different this time.
Twelve
In the fog of a dream
a swarm of black insects
flew from my mouth.
All the badness in me,
gone.
Thirteen
Our love is like a boxing match, I say. Not because we're violent, but because we're vulnerable and will end up destroying one another.
She puts a quieting finger to my lips and we go another round.
Fourteen
Tell me everything — or tell me nothing.
But kill the light, so I can better see your face.
Twenty
On a mountain, sitting on a rock,
I smell my own sweat
and it occurs to me
I cannot recall the last time
someone else did,
and liked it.
