James Meetze

from Serenades

What if the weather were conditional-giddy
as in response to a wild hair-if, in reverse, it were
dependent on the flux of our disposition?
Did it not rain because we cried tears of love.
You say when your gift unfurls, it will be fog.
I say throw caution to it.
The ransom in low-flying clouds-
you, frightened above these clouds in metal-underneath
light a hundred-million years old, which
seen through silhouetted holes in the sky
makes me think I am older.
If there were no fear in giving up control
for comfortable flight, you could rest easy
at the Villa Maria.
The moon half over the horizon and I doubt
you can see it-
I wanna close my eyes-if the weather
were quiet.
I say you are welcome to embrace the morning.
You say everyday turns itself inside-out.
Nothing but the season-noting
a summer's day, pretending I wasn't looking-
oceans apart at dawn.
I am merely a daydreamt perfectionist
of loving our life wherever the future places it.

What coy language to unravel beneath bed-sheets
visibly mussed-exploring our natures
in dim light-the windows allowing a breeze.
I am available for your surface
to bond with my scarred skin
and make a language of silences.
You say the curtain hits the cast.
I say I am beginning to breathe effortlessly.
There is only the bay to cross.
So, don't be afraid of the dark when
the possibility of light exists-
if only to enable the foresight of a future
anxiously awaited-though
the present hasn't been overlooked
and we've lost nothing but physical nearness.
No more prescience in the new model
of everything loved.
The peculiar disparity in time, in each location,
where everything is present-your voice
in time, laughter, a vendor in the periphery.
You say what better way, loving you from afar,
where every small detail is beautiful in its station.
An avenue cobbled with petals unequal to
the beauty of your lips.
We say these words in our silence.

James Meetze is the publisher of Tougher Disguises Press. His chapbook Serenades is forthcoming from Cy Press this winter. He received his MFA from Mills College and is one of the original "New Brutalists." He is the driving force behind the one-man-band, Giant Saturday

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