Discretionary Love

              Some of the stars in the night sky are so far away            

Startled for a moment, when the feeling combined all its elements into a single thought, a single warm, reassuring thought, a single hot, unsettling thought.

My mind is still gripped to late summer love Pink cotton candy in our sunset sky Reflections of dim downtown lights above Riverbank rocks and

I have eaten anything and everything since the day I was born. Mashed peas and carrots then chicken, steak and pork. I have eaten women

I know how that scar was born In college One wild night With friends and too much drink A wild gesture Loud laughter A hand

All secrets are witnessed when two noble souls do begin in compacted perfection that dubious connection called marriage. She swallows his stories, his bits of

a shattered riddle of veined promises like a thousand rivers and roads on a map that didn’t dare show its true topography no promontories on

What else? Ven aquí; let’s have it out. Mira, a little hole in the salmon filet, small enough for a doll’s shoe, a justification of

When she goes, he misses the rite of water. Before he counts her morning pills—the rite of pills is a separate ceremony— he pours one

Schoolteachers, we talked the headmaster into letting us use the dining hall for our reception and one of the dorms for our hotel. Our friends

Illicit lovers have always had more Perceptions than the terms to translate these. All language first serves functions that appease Old-fashioned family values and deplores

It’s 12 degrees the night air slices through my sweater my teeth chatter. Standing in the lot fetching my cell phone from the glove box