Yuyin: The remnants of a sound that stay in the ears of the hearer

I visit the place where my father grew up.

A tall, beige building,

ornate with red

and yellow tiles. A mosaic

of time passing from

another world I am

an intruder, usurping memories;

rapscallioning.

This is the closest

we will ever come to an embrace

I think, pressing my

forehead

to the passenger side window

(which is) sweating with cold.

My brother is balding

and I am embarrassed to

see him:

this is also a testament.

He is here out of habit; I am grasping for one.

I live on the other side of this Peninsula

but the space the separates my Brooklyn from

this Brooklyn

is thick and rippling,

like churning through an ocean

of uninterrupted butter.

It takes years for me to get here and

next time I will row faster,

I think of saying.

There is a Ginkgo tree leaning

into us

from behind the glass.

She is heavy with leaves like

canary

wings fluttering.

I cannot help but wish for larger hands

so that I might wrap them around her slender

trunk and shake them free.

I am too familiar with

the stench of

fruit, chalky pink, seeds like wrinkled

plums that rest between the

gravel and sidewalk.

Everything her turns yellow first.

Act III, COMPLETE DARKNESS. Naked.

You say
We are communicating through unrelated
acts of insecurity

I say
Kiss me, I am beautiful.

You say
I am a mountain goat in the poolhouse, bucking

I say
I am one thousand wild horses.

You say
Artichoke flowers, a book of thorns incapsulated

I say
listening, always.

You say
I appreciate you

I say
but what does that mean?

You say
until the tide comes in

and turtles freckle the shore like dark, glass plates

I say
you say nothing.

and you say nothing

1. MAHJ: To be beautiful after having a disease.

We are touching through plasma
like those
new un-poppable bubbles
gooey magenta spheres
as with chewing gum
that sticks to your fingers

Becoming closer poses the question:
What you are seeing: Feathers

all over the floor due to
cheap pillows

desperately,

I
Collect lovers like seashells
isn’t that what beaches are for?
Then mortar and pestalling
to create something evenly ground
It is always “that time”
but I am still keeping the cat

and in the end I will say one sentence
and it will be not the right one
because that is much more accurate

Cyclically

This is natural

as good as the gap between keys

my gut feels full of bricks again

like brimming with things not to say

Instead, I dream

of stuffing dead fish with lychee nuts

the entrails snaked along a subway platform

we are two women sloshing fingers--

not to forget our nails--

"The f-train is coming!"

all this in honor of friendship, I will suppose.

Isn't stomach material so different

than the lizard skin

of these fruit; We pinch through

Con sus cascaras rosas y brillante

(too beautiful for mine)

these are more real to me than

you are real, now.

I wish I had squeezed

the fish carcasses to my chest

watching their rubbery eyes bulge.

And in fistfulls

pealed,

grape-ish and translucent

all of it in disguise, and then

I become digusting

over you

anyway.

Unsolved Mysteries was on Television

I remember eating grapes in the living room.  Hot skin stuck to iced marble, knees

scraping against rough granite unders.  The lights were dim and fogged and we did not sit

close together      just like you to watch only

because the most efficient parts of the story are the only parts.  And I counted myself: there were

twelve for "Cada uva significa un segundo" I often remember without remembering why

as one connects freckles on the insides of her

dimply skin pursed under examination:

memories come to me like bruises

purple, sore and warm.

Making things more mysterious, I think: is that what you wanted?

Also Known as Strawberry Fields

They are selling Strawberry Globe Amaranth

at the farmer's market on Saturdays.

I hunger to tell someone this;

think about shouting it over

the television voice

bubbling out about

God Knows

in the living room.

If someone would just

Lower the volume!

Bright flowers;

Spike/fuzzy ruby cubes--

Please,

I am looking for something

like the pigeons in our window box

when it's raining.

And if I kissed the screen

I would feel caterpillars whispering;

I want lips like the fuzz-flower strawberries.

Wouldn't one kiss me then.

Sweet crackers,

I put everything into my mouth!

Like Wildflowers

or returning home

or finding socks in the bed:

you come to me in all the wrong moments.

Tonight I find you in a parking lot

walking home from the train station

a forest;

weeds peeking past pavement

[This burough so full of

accidental gardens]

and stop to investigate.

Through bent chicken wire,

black shapes twining and

looping in the dark; swaying

billows of grass.

I squint my eyes

to make out a

sooty feline crouched

as if blooming

between the Dandelions

and Queen Ann's Lace;

eyes like red beams and

slip under I

dig my knees into the dirt,

finding a sudden urge to hold

I wade through towards a clearing and

you

I find you there instead

limbs splayed.

Together

we stuff lightning bugs into our mouths

by the handful;

we eat them like peanuts.