update: Matchbox


it’s quiet tonight and you
instruct me where i should place my head when in close embrace,
looking straight backward instead of
pressed against your cheek.

in the midst of our battlefield of ochos cortados and
molinetes (which Quixote also attacked in earnest),
my gasoline-drenched legs make contact against the gunpowder of your smoldering words

and one morning we looked down and found that
the hardwood beneath us was burning,
around us the bandits of movement, burning
upon us the bandages of poetry, burning
bees and honey, and anthologies of a mere thought named Peace
burning.

i'm still the gasoline,
i still smell and taste like burning fuel
lying here with pieces of past
here, where our antebellum innocence reeks of happiness
and where the remains of our independence we find
wounded and strewn all over the ground.

it’s quiet tonight and i
listen patiently to the intent within your chest
while the swords of your breath
challenge duels with the air

“Let me explain a few things,”
you offered in the dark
and in your wordless explanation you
fastened your body to my arms
and reminded me with galloping silence
that love is not always melancholy
and songs are not always sad
and poetry doesn’t always burn,
and peace can be more than thought
and breathing doesn’t always mean fighting

and if these are the nights of vulnerable fires,

let me be water just this once
let me break against your harbor of sand.