Vida en marte

Cuando lo que los mantiene unidos no es exactamente el amor, y pienso
Qué acertado lo que dice –qué fuerte puede llegar a ser la atracción, como si algo
Superior a ti no te permitiese alejarte tan fácilmente–, y qué
Pequeño y pesado te hace sentir, clavado allí girando sobre ti mismo.

Cuando nuestra risa rueda por el suelo
Como perlas arrancadas del cuello de una chica,

WHEN YOUR SMALL FORM TUMBLED INTO ME
I lay sprawled like a big-game rug across the bed:

Belly down, legs wishbone-wide. It was winter.

Workaday. Your father swung his feet to the floor.

The kids upstairs dragged something back and forth

On shrieking wheels. I was empty, blown-through

By whatever swells, swirling, and then breaks

Night after night upon that room. You must have watched

For what felt like forever, wanting to be

What we passed back and forth between us like fire.

Wanting weight, desiring desire, dying

To descend into flesh, fault, the brief ecstasy of being.

From what dream of world did you wriggle free?

What soared—and what grieved—when you aimed your will

At the yes of my body alive like that on the sheets?