I miss prayer. The anxious feeling I get right before His presence pours into the room. I'm always holding my arm and shaking my head and asking Him to be there and not believing He'll show up. He used to paint pictures on the back of my eyelids and press into my hands until I had to rest them on someone else. I've been talking to Him on the West Side Highway in short breaths and simple talk. Always with a lump in my throat because I haven't given myself permission to cry yet. He listens but I miss the warm bathwater air of prayer on couches and I miss the miracles and I miss the freedom of broken.

We Happy Three

We drank red wine until our lips were plums
and our teeth were soft.
We moved like children and danced
like lazy lovers
until the streetlamps were our spotlights
and we were better than the band.
Williamsburg isn't all bad
so I made a pinky swear to the violinist
over his Malbec and through his eyeglasses.
This isn't a story with a beginning or an end.
We floated home and woke up friends;
left the violinist with the cellist
and grabbed a big yellow taxi right up to
our door.
It's better to leave things where they belong
and we belonged together. Singing and swaying;
fell asleep humming Bon Iver,
woke up to Devendra Banhart.
The death of us will be met with smiles
and holding arms or hands or sometimes faces
of violinists or friends.
We left the strangers in Brooklyn and
kept only our favorites together.
There's no beginning or end to this story
because it's the middle we find
ourselves in.

cigarettes and skittles
on the bridge jutting over the Hudson

the space between January and now is
9 or 3 months backwards or forward

it's the Irish in me that's silent
the Italian in me that's screaming

sweet and smoke while the reward for
capture goes up up up

disappear and they'll find you
on the bridge jutting over the water

Harlem is sudden and cops and ice cream
Europe is going and coming and fresh bread

life is in the water where it breaks
death is there too below the moving

some of my more confident parts are shy lately.
so I'll stretch my fingers and be gentle to my mouth.
words come when no one's looking.
I'm coaxing confidence with the promise of fair.