Unsent Text Messages to Desire in a Gas Mask

(second spring)I dreamt I was a tiny ice. Balloonin the grip of sky, I rodean elevator down to a grove, which laterproved itself an eye. Yellow. Youin denim jacket, tray in hand: jam, milk ina mute bird's mouth. "I heard yousing," you said, then put all your thingsdown. A river made me reckless. A housewith needles stuck to its forearms.

(sixth wonderment)Made it! Through a hole in air,stood my ground on the snow-black tarmac.In you, the sign of the born-again,ghost of a sliding-glass vulva,smear of biometric irises. ReadingGramsci, you cross yourself instinctivelylike a fish split open. The hook makesan ear beautiful.

(third winter)There was nothing postmodernin the way you held me, likewire to which sheets clungin monsoon season. Everything isbigger. Later your disappearance like guavabetween bare gums. A moon. The angel's lostskull my hands. Fullof my own small life.

(first grief)Unapologetically, I've used nationas metaphor: rock dissolves overhead to a tornadic script of bats. My husbandasked, "Do you really want towander like that?"

(third farewell)I don't trust literal people whoseem to understand the consequences oftheir actions. In Paris, a gendarmerie's rifle scopefastidiously sweeping the edgeof the Seine is lace, thennothing.

(farewell)Once, you took my handnot looking away.From the canines of the city –

(begin again)Torn from itsoriginal volcano, the mindgrows frugal. Violin: a bracketin the (after)math of emancipation. Yesterday,I drove past a herd of refrigeratorsin a parking lot, rustbubbling on egg-whitesurfaces as though leakingthe kills they makesafe for our appetite. Betweenwanting and touching,you said. Choose.