love al niente

i.

It was December,
the grass wet with the sky's tears
and the moon hanging in the sky
like desperate mistletoe.
The bus stop always seemed perversely romantic:
you could see exactly how people painted fatigue
on their faces,
some strange dance of yawns and grunts
which reminded you of exactly how damn precious
problems of the privileged are.

Of course, you did not dance.
You did not paint fatigue that morning.
When the sun hypocritically spilled its summer gold
you smiled,
believing your smile could turn it into something refreshing,
Cockiness
I noted,
and because it was a wrong note in life's symphony
I stepped closer to the bright almond
of your eyes.

Your first words were
"The beige really works with the leaves.",
and I think there
the fingers hit ivory
and ebony.

viii.

i could never have been sure with you;
you had danced on plenty tight ropes before
you settled for dancing on
me
and that's fucking good riddance,
i'd say.

you made me hit maximum occupancy at one
and i
was only there to watch you
fume and shrivel, back
down and fight
back
to back
to back.

you could take it from me now; don't
fool another giver with your bright magpie-eyed
smiles and pleasantries. after all, there is only
so
much
magic,
a missing facial muscle
can possess.


iii.

We were destined for the same steel whale:
Jonahs sitting in the big bad belly of the world,
we found solace in our words.
Our anxieties fluttered out like butterflies
in nervous laughter.
The grass shivered in excitement outside
the windows.

Fate pushed us together
like the breeze-cum-gale.
We were both starting a new job at the same place,
what a coincidence?

As we walked in and took positions in our offices,
I could feel the spark become institutionalized.
There would be a tower of love higher than
this concrete arrow,
I knew it,
I knew it.

The sun faded to early day.

iv.

i don't know how you managed
to bend time
and space
to make it seem like a forever
till I saw you again. there is little
in my power, there is only so
much
magic,
a missing facial muscle
can possess.

there could've been more
jerked head motions and reflexes I
needed for work, but it always seemed
you'd be the one I had
the least practice for.

v.

You blurted it all out
like the paper from the printer.
It was in the copy room,
and my God would I have you
strut staccato beats out against
my sheet-white skin
if not for the bland building.

A whirlwind of candles
and restaurant reds later,
I moved out into the
tea-beige of your place,
but the candle-lit whirlwind
still followed into the bedroom.

ii.

you were what the curve-ridden world
would call beautiful but to me, it was more
pretentious; who
doesn't like beige on leaves?
"I think it's more of the orange that comes
out. it's such a lonely
color; that's why it's my favorite."

the world must have been raining
but your fragmented chords struck
mine a little too well
with a twinkle unmistakably resting
at the corner of your left
eye,
why would you wait
for the bus when you could
hitch a ride-trap I'd fall into just as
hard as your morning fatigue
canvas?

vii.

All carnivals had to be packed up one day,
but I think we both prayed ours was heaven.
The quiver of your Adam's apple
played timpani during the awkward silences
where we allowed the sand-grey hum
of TV to replace candle whirlwinds.

The wick had died out,
right in the middle of winter.

Quarter-rest and-

Words burning scratch marks
into the walls,
lashings of forte fortissimo
thumping down on each others throats
in sforzando pedal thrusts,
tears piercing heartstrings
and what is wrong?!

And as the argument disparaged into petty decrescendo,
I was out of the tea-beige,
on the steam-grey
and in the air

vi.

it was a vaudeville of surprises
and firsts and things we
couldn't quite finger hard enough to get;
you bent over the counter in my
head and I kneeled when I
could but we could never
kneel together

we were always so nautically
challenged but I couldn't waver
from our buoy. it's
funny how our reds wallowed into teal,
oscillating, vibrating
just until
we got stuck
in the dead of winter -
right
in the middle.

ix.

Such gossamer skin,
I thought.
I did not dance on you:
I brought upon overtures of love
to let you step into the symphony of now.
Us.

You did not talk to me at work.
I had already faded al niente.

So now the grass is wet in tears
and the moon desperate mistletoe.
But there is a man standing away
from the waltz of morning blues,
and his eyes burn like almond stars.

So I say,
da capo.

x.

da capo
da capo.