i kneel before the radiator,
that slim altar of heat,
spreading out rows and rows
of drenched socks that hiss and crackle
into the night like miserable minnows
on a grill, drowning out the sound of

ten minutes ago, when i told alligator eyes
to put on his best suit
cause we were dancing the jig tonight.
instead we sat face to face,
my hands in his,
and he spent each moment breaking
my fingers and melting my joints
and he almost tore my wrists off
and he almost wrenched me into
saying those painful
releasing words:

i am your one day festival.

what can i do without hands?
if i should be the dark stain
seeping across your underwear,
i could have made a promise as to how much
i'd be able to wash off.
and we find ourselves making bargains
saying, a month or two more, or
we'll just wait for the letter.

dear first man,
though you will spend your last days
limping away from modernity (knuckles
dragging, tongue swiveling out of its
fixed socket) you don't have to be
scared of the night, you don't have to
bargain away the loneliness,
because you won't find anything
in the dark that isn't there
when the lights are on, because each day
that we spend we are rubbing twigs
together and we are making fire.

in the event i get to see that large metal bird lift off
into darkness, i'll know that beauty has flown
789 uncountable miles away from me.

and where the airplane has tugged your strings and
unraveled you at the seams
i'll have loved you gone.

a/n: autobiographical. to a very special person