Wednesday 12:26 AM

carlos, you’re sleeping; I’m sneaking

out to write this

on naked tiptoe, bump your leg

as I glissade from my side of the futon

touch your ankle in

beatitude

 

maybe you, mostly dreaming

think I’m in the bathroom, one of those

night calls, natural

no

it’s just there was this poem, fueled

by the last dregs of ice tea and

Excedrin

 

today we

walked the borderlands of lead-dusted

soccer fields, empty picnic tables, while

diamond-cut through chainlink, we beheld

unrealized innovation–

that old abandoned grain-mill in her

havisham wedding shroud, black

mold lace and graffiti greasepaint

 

there,

just up Columbus Street

the flags of IKEA

brave a breastmilk wind

 

today we argued about, what?

about benches, about nothing

some little thing that’s nothing

my throat yipped like a hawk scraping her

chalky beak on the ritual blackboard

of atonement:

 

I shall not speak harshly to those I love

I shall not speak harshly to those I love

I shall not, I shall not . . . 

 

it’s midnight, and I have this poem to write

 

your hair?

when it’s long, is a love-letter and

a gallop of cherubs, a hug hello, a detonated poodle

your hair is every ring I want to wear

yet come the shearing season

my name is murder

 

the shape of your skull is

frozen yogurt sweetness on the sweaty thighs

of August

your eyes sleepy, glitter on your lashes

(see what comes of kissing me?)

you shift your ukulele to your right shoulder

to better take my hand

 

ah, you’re lovely, you’re lovely,

and i

‘m

out of the habit

of poetry

 

 

ETA:
Later that morning, he wrote on my Facebook page:

My love, I have awoken.
You’re sleeping here beside me.
You rose last night to write me
Poetry.

I shudder without moving.
I laugh without a sound.
I wouldn’t want to accidentally wake you
Now

For your sleep was interrupted
Last night for love of me.
I slept through my becoming
Poetry.

But now I am awake, love,
To enjoy the evidence
Of your midnight’s burst of passion-possessed
Dalliance

With me, for me to find today,
Asynchronous of you.
Sleep now. I’ll wake you with kisses at
8:22.

– Carlos Hernandez