Between Here & There

for Brandon Goacher

I.

Let me speak with expressive

hesitation & a feeling for

interment why even

lineate what isn’ t broken by

music let me speak with

inextricable reluctance.

I want to tear the heart

from refused convalescence

& feed it those long fronds

of river bed grass. I want to

tear the heart out of style

& put it between

utter thrall & the infancy

of all things impure.

Torn out, a flame thickens

between us as if

not right now we’ ll be

ripped from this life

or each other a white

lie not a little more tender

than quick. Inextricable

reluctance to die or even

leave youth culture ever.

What a stupid feeling.

Do you think it isn’ t

true? The very existence

of flame throwers proves

that sometime, somewhere,

someone said to themselves

‘You know I want to

set those people over there

on fire but I’ m just not

close enough to get the

job done.’ Someone

puts their arms around you

in the cold. There’ s an al-

most disquieting closeness

as gossamer clots &

becomes an impasto derivative

of some newly visible

interdependence. Flame

throwers then are just

a description of prevailing

ideology, relics, the life

of the party, a soul

flirts by burning

that name for itself

up in jonesing that comes

at the end of desire?

Well I wouldn’ t know

about that. A little

goat. Why would it

nuzzle dreamily up

the way I nuzzle dreamily

up to my knees. In the

‘fatal position’ as my

nephew used to call it

estranged from play

waiting on the fox hunt.

Oh baby

it beats up my lips

the somatic effects

of contriving a psychic

blockade against death

with the contours of your

face & healing

in constant eclipse

where all things

inextricably broken by

music make the basic

rhythmic unit go

something like this — I

don’ t want to loose you. I

don’ t want to be

empty, clever hold &

keep you. I was lost

to you to start with still

I keep on coming back.

Do you think you’ ll

keep on coming back to me

forever? That’ s the meaning

of our life together

baby.