ANTI-GRAVITY MAN
 

He tried to fill the hole - find
the center of what fell out of him
fifteen minutes before midnight
on the day he was born.

It was his benign tumor. A sickness
that wouldn’t kill him. At night,
before sleep entered his room,
before twilight clouds brushed
his eyes closed, he’d reach
inside and wonder why he was
made this way. A mutation with an
unnatural lightness of being.

His condition went undetected except
when the wind blew through him,
causing his shirt to billow like a sail,
and a high-pitched whistle to emit from
within him. A sound only a dog’s ears
could detect.

To himself, he was invisible:
tissue paper thin, weightless and
lacking substance. Most days he
felt he wasn’t even standing on
earth. But he wanted to.

He theorized that a heart must hold the
universe and weigh ten thousand
pounds. It is a heart that keeps
feet on the floor.

Nothing mattered to this untethered,
floating pilgrim but finding a cure
for his gaping hole. A yearning he
did not acknowledge until the day
he became firmly rooted in her.

GHOST BOY'S LAST SUPPER

Ghost boy stood cool
silent next to her lips,
“All my words have fallen into your brown eyes
10,000 miles deep and warm as tropical rain.
Even the breeze that blew through me has fallen into you.”

Promising to turn my salt tears
to rain drops of diamonds.
Phoenix feathers to dust doom away.
Howling as I become her last supper.

Resurrected I recover myself under shoe boxes,
dust balls and lost socks.
Dancing like a lover liberated
under a summer night sky,
turning as everything became
clear and brilliant and slow.

Waking to find myself between two pure porcelain legs
inviting me in as if invitation were breathing
and passion were a soft warm breeze
blowing across her breasts at 1:15 p.m. on Sunday.

PERFECT SAINT

 The indigenous people of Guatemala say that
Saint Maximon is the union of saint and devil.
He drinks, womanizes, sins
and forgives any transgression.

Wearing red and smoking cigarettes
he rises with the sun and burns all night long.

How glorious to be naked
beneath a blanket of forgiveness.