space travel, for Ly

you took: a video of our last big gathering,
people, smoke, and thin meats everywhere

the myspace shadow of two cold bodies
on top of a windy mass of hilly curves, old grass

one puppy then two, companions for a happy life,
we'd hoped. i'd hoped the same for you.

odd translations of the noodle man's ghost,
and all the old children in the new room now,

trying to read a crazy mumbling of a text,
trying to understand a stranger's call,

mapping out the day, its destinations in green.

saw the apartment before we erased it.

taught us how to play, sex to sitar strings.

spoke for me when i'd last heard his voice,
a long-distance call in three free minutes.

you had new numbers and loved them all,
each one a temporary name and identity.

one day, on the train,  you gave me a galaxy
and let me control when worlds collided,

but i couldn't take hold of them forever,
things just tend to crash into each other,

obliterate. all the memories you'd worked out

linger on in the mind of other temporary stations:

in the end, aren't we all only one moment
in the relay rounds, going in circles, crying

about everything we'd lost while hugging tightly
to the new bodies that have replaced the old?

No comments: