20
OU T H E R E
Blue Because you are beautiful & broken-hearted Because I have traced veins like blueprints through your body Because I am following a map that leads through spider webs & snow Because we are judged even before we begin Because love has been confused with mathematics Because a child asked me once if the sky would fall & I said no (now I have reconsidered) Because a robin’s egg is as delicate as it is durable Because the body is ninety-percent liquefaction & only ten percent powder Because the bruise is both mighty & sad Because I once heard a Beatles song that inspired me Because I also like jazz Because it is not enough to be one or the other when each one contains the other Because the castles have motes like dust & everything crumbles to cornerstone Because blood does not begin red Because night does not conclude black Because theories are legs that fracture Because truth is a knee that bends Because you looked at me once with eyes wide & soft & bright as cornflowers & I could not look away Because both sides of the fence are brambled Because a door opens both ways Because there is only circumference, not distance Because my tongue fills up my mouth when I try to tell you Because we are not light Because we are not special Because the heart is muscle, not bone Because not one of us is airborne Because lapis is such a dark stone Because there are only subjective correlatives Because language is lift over drag Because your tongue fills up my mouth when you try to tell me Because periwinkle was my childhood favorite word Because we are palimpsest & we write the same stories over & over Because you have burned me to the alpha of flame Because my body remembers as my mind recreates Because aberrance & anomaly are analogies for artistry Because my best lines are drawn at an angle Because you are melancholy Because you are joyful Because carnations drink any color water Because we cannot drink dust Because we cannot swallow stone Because you increase my temperature, my heartbeat, my hunger Because there is