On Falling in Love With You, I Should Not

I.

(I give you rope, scattered on a floor)
Under a blanket reading Rothko
(Fragments yield safe stories)
A Catholic business man rids himself of rice in a Venezuelan tent
(Future tense is expression of present feeling)
Your father gripped camera Harley handle bars; your mother’s house is full of frames
(There are no words here)
In that scene, you are no bigger than a black powder pistol

II.

(I agreed not to say)
My students banged their notebooks and were ghosts under your guidance
(In the railroad photo you are at least 30 feet away)
Hollow boulders? Snakes might as well grow from the ground
(I do not write stories)
Diner waitresses populate your childhood
(I am already working on your van
—it is brown and yellow to me—
to get you away from
these Mulberry trees)
He scaled cliffs to photograph the waterfall we retain in our skin
III.

(You kissed me and apologized
in a dream; a touch of warmth
with a shock within)
We flipped abandoned buildings like
river rocks

We rearranged illegal letters before the Lord, Amen

(I have a loft bed in Williamsburg)

Covered from rain in a warehouse dock, we saw perfect green and red cycle on the street

Did we really drive 60 miles to stay within the same light?

(Touch me while I am sleepingwhere meaning cannot be made)