Monsoon

I wanted
to write you a love poem
to catch it all up
in a way arms
prevented us
to tell you everything
my dreams all those nights
so you would know
how much

how long
I sped along the tunnels
of secret highways
to escape
to rush towards
where I thought
I would find
what I was looking for
you were there
even if you were somewhere else
you were right beside me

and maybe you even heard
the bootleg 1966 anthem
of my dream
La MaMa
that night

What was I
supposed to do
but run
through the streets
under the river
I couldn’t forget you
the smell of your coat
man man man
staccato
life and I would find you

and I had to stop
listening to it
and I don’t know
how to explain
really
what it was
that I wanted you

to know

and now on the radio
there are floods
pouring
tearing down
bridges
and cities
and my childhood heart

he said it can never be rebuilt
never be what it was
everyone
had to say goodbye
to move with what they have left

the man said
I have one of my daughters left
and the waters are testing the dams

and we don’t know what else
the monsoons will take
when they will swell up again
but we know they are coming
again
and we must try
to be ready

and I watch the same duet
of smoke streaming
sucked out the opening
into the night

as I did driving away
the night we met

and I see the petri steam
rising from the flood waters
on the other side of the world
and it is not a love poem
it is a lost poem

a poem with you
and without you
for all the things I wanted
and you wanted
and the man in the city of the 63 ruined bridges
wanted
desired
lost

in the catastrophic
speed of one thing
moving away from another
possibility it recognized

and if we can never get it back
we had it once
and it will be there
somehow always

even if there are no bridges left
even if you are somewhere else
you are right beside me