Blue
Because you are beautiful & broken-hearted Because I have traced veins like blueprints through your body Because I am following a map that leads through spider webs & snow Because we are judged even before we begin Because love has been confused with mathematics Because a child asked me once if the sky would fall & I said no (now I have reconsidered) Because a robin’s egg is as delicate as it is durable Because the body is ninety-percent liquefaction & only ten percent powder Because the bruise is both mighty & sad Because I once heard a Beatles song that inspired me Because I also like jazz Because it is not enough to be one or the other when each one contains the other Because the castles have motes like dust & everything crumbles to cornerstone Because blood does not begin red Because night does not conclude black Because theories are legs that fracture Because truth is a knee that bends Because you looked at me once with eyes wide & soft & bright as cornflowers & I could not look away Because both sides of the fence are brambled Because a door opens both ways Because there is only circumference, not distance Because my tongue fills up my mouth when I try to tell you Because we are not light Because we are not special Because the heart is muscle, not bone Because not one of us is airborne Because lapis is such a dark stone Because there are only subjective correlatives Because language is lift over drag Because your tongue fills up my mouth when you try to tell me Because periwinkle was my childhood favorite word Because we are palimpsest & we write the same stories over & over Because you have burned me to the alpha of flame Because my body remembers as my mind recreates Because aberrance & anomaly are analogies for artistry Because my best lines are drawn at an angle Because you are melancholy Because you are joyful Because carnations drink any color water Because we cannot drink dust Because we cannot swallow stone Because you increase my temperature, my heartbeat, my hunger Because there is
no prescription Because there is no conclusion Because there is only spectrum Because there is only light Because the boxes get broken down Because tape is inefficient & expensive Because a puddle is not a pond & a pond is not a river or a waterfall Because we are all oceans beyond accounting for, beyond believing Because you are the only ship that hasn’t capsized in this storm Because the moon is always in motion Because I have not yet begun to dream Because there are not enough uniforms Because there are not enough numbers Because the catalogues are too full & too empty Because I left my punch card on the table Because there are no greeting cards to send Because they still card me at gay bars Because my dance card was too full & too empty & you came solo Because the moon wears a shade like wilted flowers Because I have no wish to be embalmed by labels Because your palm fits the width of my pocket Because your hand opens like a map through spider webs & snow Because I was baptized in cold water Because I was chided for crying Because the bed is a raft & we are the sails Because the world is ungracious Because the windmills are burned at their stakes Because I promised I would withhold nothing Because the iris has a cunning view Because there is more beneath the surface of the sky Because I am not easily satisfied Because I have untied my shoes Because I have unslipped my collar, my tags, my nooses Because I refuse to be nominal Because I refuse to be rushed Because I am not a participant in this conversation Because their voices are whispers or screams Because my can opener has rusted Because my protest signs are bubbled with rain Because the ink has run out of my pen Because the tears have run out of my eyes Because I do not expect anyone to listen Because I no longer expect to be heard Because there are pictures no one has taken Because the temperatures outside are falling Because X & Y are absent from our alphabet Because we are not reducible to algebra Because “there isn’t a particle of you that I don’t know, remember, & want” Because you bore through me with your keen blue eye