In the early morning hour,
just before dawn, the two lovers wake
and sip from the leftover Franzia box wine.
She asks, “Do you love me or yourself more?
Please, tell the absolute truth.”
He says, “Me.
But only because I have no clue who you are.”
I see you through the night in the gathering,
but cannot take you openly in my arms,
so I put my lips next to your cheek,
and hope your boyfriend doesn’t notice.
My love wanders the rooms, stumbling,
bass beating, strewn clothes
high on some good weed she smoked
on the way back from under the porch.
We are three. The moon comes
speaking to us in our ecstasy,
watching us take ecstasy as we
lay around the bonfire.
One of us kneels, pressing the hard dirt.
One drinks, cool to the lips.
One watches the gathering,
and says to any stern onlookers,
Please hold my hair back,
I’m about to vomit everything.
Stay together, friends.
Don’t scatter and sleep.
Our friendship is made of being awake.
The waterwheel accepts water
turns and gives it away,
like the pills it gave us, that will
make sleep impossible anyway.
Seriously, we need to stay together.
A man was crying into the night,
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with praising,
until a cynic said,
“He left like an hour ago.”
The man had no answer to that.
He drifted down and fell into a confused sleep.
A story is like water that you heat for your bath.
It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. You drink it in quickly,
like everything else you have touched.
Very few can sit down in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham,
except for your friend Tricky Pete
who will do anything for $20.
A feeling of fullness comes,
in the back of a county ambulance.
You that love lovers,
This is your home. Welcome!
You were not supposed to be back until Sunday.
In the midst of making merriment,
love made merriment that soon melts merriment,
with Jäger for the door,
tequila the vestibule.
Watch the headlights pour
in through the windows,
as everyone scatters.
Their dance is our dance.
We do not hear the inward music,
because the outward music sings from an iPod,
directed by the one who teaches us,
someone’s brother, who no one really knows,
our music master.
I am morning dew
and evening wind.
I am the bits of dust in the light.
I am the tree and its deep roots.
Do you seriously still not
remember who I am?