On Cortelyou summer children shriek and hurl / ice left after the market stands close up. / Cold crystals scatter across the steaming sidewalk. / A dirty white cat ducks under a dirty white van, / and I hug the edges of the low brick buildings. / In their departure one older boy wraps / his arms around the waist of another, head / tucked down into his slim shoulder. / / The rent’s too high to live where I grew up. / I’m here, two subway stops removed, unsure / how I’m any different than that young / white woman who yelled down at me / and my new bisexual friends being teenagers / too loudly below her Park Slope window. / We screamed Fuck off Go back to Connecticut! / the worst insult we could conceive of, and ran off / into the park to drink Mike’s Hard and worry / some more about touching each other. / / At least I do no yelling now. I am / a quiet, unknown neighbor to these boys: / a slow and unremarked-on violence in itself. / I’m stuck standing at the curb, searching / for an alternative to being useless. / Their bodies press and arc into a deep lean, / dark slender trees bowing in a big wind / as their motorcycle curves the corner.

April means it’s almost time / to leave. It’s the feeling that / this afternoon like everything / else is escaping me. / A yellow beetle inches upside / down along the edge of my desk. / With each step forward the bright / wing-covers shift from side to side. / / I give the desk to it. Get outside / and head down the reedy path / towards the fire pit and the stiff line / of alders beyond, empty except / for their small grey cones holding fast. / / Earlier I’d gone the same way / with Aracelis who told me about / the fig tree she’s leaving, behind / her apartment in Crown Heights. / Like I’m leaving this place, its long / skies, its llamas and rusty sumac. / How to account for each small thing / we love and which can’t come with us: / the brown and purple figs, thick / and good. This growing sense / that loss isn’t some inlet we rush / into, then out of, back to normal; / that it’s been there with us, and all we get / to keep is the desire for something / just as good. What if the next / house has creeping bougainvillea, / an avocado tree.

I wanted to touch everything in Cherry / Grove: someone’s elaborate ass, tattooed / with an expressionless pair of eyes — / a small elegant woman sleeping with / a pit bull in her arms on the afternoon sand. / / We all walked purposeful up to the waves, / my friends, our chests unbound / under the warm grey sky. I thought of F / who slept in their binder our first nights / together. The terrible crush of rib and lung — / the other clutch of fear at its removal. / These we place each time on our isolated scales / of desire and inhibition, ensuring we’ll stay / just as we are. But not today. / / (Later Reina tells me about this same beach, / her sense that only a certain kind of girl / was wanted. I’d felt so easy in myself / I didn’t think of who was missing).

Ted says plucking / the feathers from a chicken / feels like pulling up blades / of thick grass. / / Sometimes I depart / from myself, other times / I don’t. What I want / is you to tell the difference. / / Just like that we were making out, / hardly inside the door, and when / you asked I said there was / nowhere you couldn’t touch. / / You said really, disbelieving, / then we both felt sort of sad. / Just like that, the old, tall grass / pushed up between us. / / I imagine Ted running / his fingers through the warm, / soft feathers of the living / chickens, remembering.

On my way to the video store sheets of ice / cover puddles like wrinkles patterning / the corner of an eye. I’m on my way / to return Paul Newman. He’s kissing / parking meters like they were girls / he’d been circling all night, then deftly / beheading them. / More ice on the bus shelter glass. / One panel reads, “your gay” scratched / through the thin crystals. Mine? / / Still it’s not hard to see the two of us instead: / only days ago. My shoulder encountering / yours on the sofa during Cool Hand Luke. / Or early the next afternoon before I left, / as you pressed me up against the door / and said it’d be a shame for me to lose / my breasts. I stepped back / outside into the first inch of snow / that had gathered since we came in. / / Already the snow was melting. / A clump fell from the branches / of the tall bush by the front door. / They shook up then down / a trampoline evening itself out / after its jumper has jumped off. / It was a short walk home. / It would have taken more / blocks to figure out / that I’d escaped without losing / my head. My glasses fogged / when I got in from outside.

cloud /         cloud /                           cloud /                 cloud / passion flower, or some kind / of flower, I should ask / my mother /         heart that /         reverberates / a face, blushing, with soft eyes /         perky plum / sweep of the polish brush up /                     the nails / crystal ball /         cloud   cloud / bow /         cake w strawberries / the high priestess wearing orchids: / on her iphone it looks like a bride, / how embarrassing, I had meant /         pink rain princess / the vortex, or portal, I was never sure / wave          wave         wave /          wave         wave / the love hotel /         a cloud       a cloud / pink poodle, chick / new from the egg / sun that sets into the water without / changing the sky

Under the damp canopies of Ditmas Park / I turn my head up to the lilacs heavy / with rainwater and their delicate smell. / I’m carrying rose quartz in my hip pocket / so I can feel *embodied*. The last time / I saw you it was summer and our clothes / stuck to us. Now it’s spring, when the air / begins to warm and wetten, and a physical / existence begins to feel at least possible again. / Lately, all my friends want to talk / about masculinity, which is tempting / to reject altogether, / like, I’m supposed to be it / but have no interest in its restriction, / its dull refusal of excess. / Still I could just be bitter / because everybody seems to think / I’m some strange, wispy butch / who forgot to stop painting her nails. / / We group-text selfies for affirmation. / Kai’s reflection startles / after a dramatic haircut and they’re sick / of everybody projecting boi-ness / onto them, and will this make it worse? /             – o bb / let’s never care – / /             – 💖 / I’m here to meet Paco / in the empty apartment / we’ll live in together. / They say they’re in search / of a masculine gentleness. / The super guided them here / over the phone to a hidden key / You will be in a strange hallway / you will turn completely / past the gilded lobby / there will appear before you / a door, reach up with your fingers / and feel. I decide to allow / for complexity. / / It’s my familiar way: leaving / the building and thinking of you / in Buenos Aires I realize I don’t want / to ask when you’re coming home / or where home will be for fear / of becoming expectant. / / The wetness of spring / is light and weight at once; / the blades of grass are bent / by gleaming beads of rain. / I walk by a bunch of teenage boys / leaving a track meet, loud, sharp and salty / and as we pass, one of their hands / brushes mine. I am always / expectant anyway.

Inside the Columbarium I climb slowly up, / circle the dome and peer into the vaults: / glassed off dioramas of loss and left behind: / eyeglasses folded up, / cigarette tucked into the brass handle, / photos of young men / beautiful in each other’s arms, / now decades dead. LEDs flash Terry Terry / Terry forever. I lean close to read Gavin’s / letter to Hugh about the space between / one’s belly and the other’s back and what / was held there once. This morning I’ve come / from an unfamiliar bed, sunburnt, / hungover, lip split from their teeth / so that every further kiss hurt sweetly. / / José Muñoz explains: we disidentify / with what won’t hold us, but which / we cannot leave behind. Standing here / it’s like I’ve felt my affinity with them / would somehow ungirl me. / Then I consider men at the age they’d be / if they had lived and I think it’s easier / to love the dead, who haven’t had the chance / to abandon us. What do I know. / If I’m honest I haven’t tried to love / anyone, alive or dead, or at least I’m sure / I didn’t start last night.

It is very late. /   Before you leave for good I dream /   I returned to Mars where we’d been before. /   I came to a cluster of rocks we’d arranged. /   Flat rusts and browns, they rested /   on their sides, circles cut from their centers. / I am drunk and wrecked, crying in bed / as you say you have finally seen / that I am not a woman. What comes / first is the clear relief of being known. / But desire trips us up — how I want and you don’t. / /   Beyond the rocks stood the strange world /   of red dust, canyons and clouds, /   and it was wrenching to see our work, /   here in this since-unvisited place, but so /   lovely that any sadness swiftly passed. / In the morning shower we wash each other briskly, / brother cats in the wet air, and then we part.

and the lonely ghosts, always moving / the french press from where you’d put it / or leaving the light on in the staircase / again, just so you notice, precise like cats / knocking coins o the desk – nudge nudge / clink – cause you’re still not out of bed. / Every day is a watch or the ring / you never take off and the line / it’s made when you nally do. / We have one night left for me to tell / you what I’ve learned about myself. / Not long to wait and chicken out / and stay a girl until you’re gone. / In the morning when you leave / I put Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits / on repeat and sit on the porch / with my percolated coffee / (can’t find the french press) / and strands of mango / in my front teeth from breakfast. / Is there anything more out there? / The fruit peel, the sun / in mid-gallop, sticking / to the edge of the knife.