1
A terrace outside the room.  Weeds
grow through cracked concrete, a  bottle 
of warm beer stands on the broken table.  
To the side, the orchid darkens as the sun 
splashes down in flames, steam rising   
from the heads of boiled fish, cockeyed 
in the pot we all live in.  
One knapsack and a few books 
I never wrote, this is what I own.
A few hours ago, Miguel, the clerk, accepting 
my gold chain and earring, said
“Tomorrow morning at seven.  Out.”
 

2
In the monkey’s shadow where the gecko 
scoots between two stones then disappears 
only to reappear two minutes later 
crawling upside down on the bathroom ceiling, 
that’s when I first notice it, how 
I can’t keep up with what’s going on, 
the monkey gone before I know it and then, later 
when I glance at the bathroom ceiling, the gecko 
isn’t there either and neither anywhere 
in these rooms are you, legs spread someplace else 
as always, fucking another man 
in Puerto Rico, or this time is it Arizona?  
 

The mind made up of other minds, all of them 
humming near the fragrances they want 

My body is the sunlight beating little wings 
above the nude you’s every inch

Look at them over there, the bees  
swarming the coneflowers  

On the ground, fecund with sweat 
in my arms, you are the hot grass opening up 
into the bright darkness of openings still unknown 

Much later you smell of the rosewood soap
I wash you with, although 

in an affair like this 
we never can get clean, unless, 

in spite of everything, 
we do