.

I have a piano in my living room
which is the only thing that currently
connects me to myself, not words or
images but the bottomless black hole
of D flat that anchors me to my hereandnow,
that seductive slide of skin across cold
keys in the dark while outside, silver
clouds slip across an autumn moon into
this silent night and somewhere near my
right shoulder, a candle flame shrinks
into a pool of melting wax; the shadows
that my fingers cast across the ivories
finally disappear.

these days are blackandwhite and as
an antidote, I could so easily leave
this place.

not just this place but everything I am.

Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint

Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.

I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.

If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,

never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.

(Federico García Lorca)