AUBADE

Maybe, our love 

was not a gift

made for us.

Maybe it doesn't function

like a service 

or product, but 

more like a process—

like nuclear fusion 

in the sun,

where everywhere 

you looked, you'd see tons 

of doomed couples 

breathlessly speeding 

head-on 

toward one another, 

colliding and expiring, 

to create 

something rarer,

something heavier 

and just a little bit more 

precious than they were—

not to mention, 

a tiny fraction of heat 

and of light 

which might make 

the lives of some

billions of others 

far, far away from there 

a little more 

possible.

SPECIFIC CANDLES

The best love poems

are always 

trying their best 

not to come across 

as too dull 

or too clever.

They often involve rhyming 

the same words together, 

over and over 

and over 

and over. 

The truest ones 

don't settle for 

"patient" and "kind;" 

they describe love 

as "sucker"

and "enabler" 

and are not scared to show it 

waiting forever 

in parking lots 

scanning all the outbound 

faces from the car

or sitting alone 

in darkened kitchens, long after

specific candles have dwindled. 

But most importantly, 

the best love poems

don't reveal much;

like our lives, they're over 

far too abruptly

for that—

besides, even if 

they saw something,

they'd probably lie—

or talk around it 

on the sly—or just 

never bring it up.

END TIME

By November, 

any hesitation has been drowned

in early shade; 

anywhere you look, all life 

has begun 

to uncomplicate.

All feel 

the centripetal pull—

irresistible 

as the center of a 

famished black hole—

from clock hands 

that whir toward 

their end time, invisible. 

Some can even hear it: 

that imperative 

of the thinning air 

daring them

to carry their coherence 

for much longer. 

While the deaf 

are unceremoniously stretched 

and bent, squeezed and rent 

of even their unutterable 

concept 

of halcyon. 

MISSION IMPROBABLE

With that first slap 

of existence, 

you are told

congratulations;

you are contestant number 

eight billion 

and one—

you are 

the chosen one—you 

will be upgraded.  

And just like that, 

you're an 

astronaut, 

an intrepid explorer 

of inscrutable territory. 

Your experimental endeavor 

(which you cannot 

decline): 

to hurtle, in this 

gangly vessel, headlong 

toward the future—

flying at the fantastical 

rate of one second 

per second, 

each and every second—

and then, 

when, at long last 

and terrible cost, you 

finally arrive, 

to promptly check-in

on the status 

of the rest of us.

PREORDAINED

Kaleidoscope 

of colored leaves, 

tumbling erratic

in shifting streams

of wind, 

though such 

an obvious 

fate has befallen thee—

collapsed,

soaked in torrents,

then dried 

by the breezes—

would that the stems, 

hearts, and edges 

of our lives 

come through it all 

so vivid, 

so crisp, and 

so clean.

GOSPEL

The good news is—

Eternity 

does exist;

the bad news 

is—you're in

the middle of it already. 

Not to mention,

as rewards go, it's less  

a cash settlement 

than it is 

an inheritance 

which is marred by stipulations.

What you want 

from such a heaven is 

to finally be together again;

what you get 

from it instead is: an utter lack 

of separation. 

THIS IS IT

Even if I were able 

to live 

in the moment,

it would still feel 

like suicide 

when the next one arrived.

And even though 

tomorrow, 

I will just as likely say 

that I shall trust 

and heed nothing 

outside of that day, 

I still cling to the fate 

which has found me in this one

as if to slow its passing by. 

By now, I know the stars we use 

to find our position 

have long ago exploded, 

but still, I 

can't remember 

what I've lied about last, 

or the child I must have 

been before I ever 

got the chance.