for JS Makkos
spilling watercolors, the orbit of design
pixels a code so fine, it mirrors our nature
and is it survive? is that what the lover coos
under wing, under threadbare nights
delta of where we traveled and what i
have learned about being safe is who
arrives to see us, who shows up at the center,
a coring of delight, a lover’s something else, a tinny
call that verbs the slid escape of blindness
inside the dream of moments: You
send a link to an image of Louisiana
taken by an astronaut, blues wipe into eye-
lets of gulf familiar & we landed here
gentle folds of image fog, image absent
let us consider untranslatable, a bridge, lately
we cut from time, how far can we hide in language
i can say nothing & make it beautiful
to poet is control, i am never lost if words
are not what scrapes belief, the undone spool of mine
i wanted & what is enough, we danced on the dying
of our land, in the trespass of being human, we danced
& stole joy in the colored lights as if disease or night’s
mare had not ridden us exhausted, had i not
been able to breathe in the vacuum, i might
have cleared sooner, had i known how far
i could rise from where i was pinned to cruelty
i might have flown too fast, a melting occurs in light
that sorrows love: look at this image
our home, where we stacked moments, so delicate
madness is the instrument of such intelligence
will we travel far enough to spiral distance
become what we are meant to be: echoes
there is no time outside knowing this
