Three Poems

Dear reader

now that we’re friends I will tell you about the buttercup,
China, the dragon and the fire eater. My glass of lemonade.
Why are you standing at the traffic light when the light is green?
Confused or worse, let’s stay friends. Come, I want to play you
the beautiful jazz of the sea. The orphans asleep under pink rain—
destiny—do not wake the new world until the new world is ready.
I want to plant the orange seeds so they become orange trees.
I want to raise a palace of fragile hearts, hearts that are ours
but not ours. Parents, guardians, sailors: don’t ask for us—
we’re dancing on the breeze on which the butterflies were born.

Such great heights

The air around me is heavy, not sure
if my leg can pass through cloud, not sure
of the colors above me.

I’m sure
I can’t come down.

I feel your ribbon tighten on my thigh. Follow me
until daybreak
I feel your breath on my back of my neck. Lick
the perfume from my lips

The mist clears. I paint my finger down your spine.
This is my poem. Keep me together
in the empire of your arms

I am whatever I am.
Marble boy, tower of girl.
Marigolds spill from my mouth.

Soft light brushes over the mercury world,
a hand pushes the needle off.

The snow on the mountain recedes, cross
the ocean
blindfolded, until I reach the shore.

Stones

For Leticia Egea

Purple blossom star-fall over Sierra Nevada
tropical storms, elephants coated with glitter
Leticia Egea, your uncle, companion of shadows

left in the black sky’s loom over black sand
there’s a rainbow in my raincoat, anxious texts
cars dreaming of crashing, the world downloads

itself in a file, a helicopter hovers low over the mountains
and I think of your bubble in the sunset’s delicate red.

Painting a picture I have yet to see: the cosmos of your body
spreading out like a melody under the moon.

The waves all seem so close, foaming fairy thrones
but I hate the weather here, the way you hate my poetry.

I have a handful of stones. Red wine in my throat.
Leticia Egea, all my vowels hang from a cherry tree.
When I think of you the spring turns blue.