April is the cruellest month, breeding
breakups out of the thin man, jinxing
memory and desire, frizzing
my gray roots with spring pain.
Winter drove us crazy, covering
time with youtube, feeding
my little life by taking ubers.
Bummers surprised me, coming over the transom
With showers of pain; we’d stopped at Angelica
And went on in phonelight, into Prospect Park,
and drank coconut juice, and talked for seven hours.
I should not have been rushing, but lissome, and moist.
And we were once children, in Bolinas, or a suburb,
He took me into his head
And I was frightened, He said, Nada,
Nada, hold me tight. And down we went.
I tiptoed near him, never felt free.
We texted each other, and then it went south.
What are the arms that clutch, what words grow
out of this dusty sadness? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know no sound of life
A few broken teenagers, on the live stream,
And those near-dead girls give no shelter, the website no relief.
And the dry phone no sound of real life. Only
there is shadow inside your big head.
You live in the shadow of your big head.
I tried to show you something different.
You sent me videos of your shadow walking
Long and tall like a Brancusi figure
shrouded in fear and in dust.
Frisking the wind
The homely zoo
My kind iris
What are your wiles?
You sent me an email seven years ago
now call me an unhinged girl
Yet when we came back, late, from the East Village,
Your arms thin, and your hair silver, I could not
speak, and my mind reeled. I was both
living and dead, and I am Nada.
Looking into the heart of night, your silences
owe their leering to the sea.
Otohime 